Farewell my Bonnie Ireland

Excerpts from my journal: Final entry

“I am sitting here in the airport filled with sadness. I parted ways with my U.S. bound friends, fighting back tears the whole time. Being with them made me homesick for the first time since coming here. Hearing about life at Elon and being with people who I have a history with brought a subconscious ache to the surface. But… in this moment, there are people around me who are carrying on with their lives, there are giants in front of me created by man to shrink the world and thus I am reminded that my small world will continue to turn.

This trip was amazing. Truly. I don’t know how I could have had more fun. Here is a catch up…

Our first day in Killarney Michael and I woke up bright and early to go on a run and we ended up running to this fancy hotel called the Lake Hotel that had a castle ruins on its property that overlooked a beautiful lake in Killarney National Park.

We came back to a DELICIOUS buffet at the Woodlawn before heading out to the Dingle Peninsula. It took about an hour and a half to get to the Dingle Loop Scenic Drive. On the way we stopped at Inch Strand beach (recommendation of our gas station friend-man.) It was so beautiful. We ran along the beach laughing as Michael walked behind us like a dad. We asked some lovely British folks to take our picture and chatted with them for awhile. They told us this was their fourth trip to Ireland and the Dingle/Kerry area was the best they’d seen.

We drove the loop. What is an hour drive took us FOUR hours because we stopped so much. We saw ancient beehive huts, forts, monastic sites, abandoned homes from the potato famine in the 1850s, beautiful beaches and mountains, and of course SHEEP. We drove out to the tip of the peninsula, which is the westernmost point in Europe!

We were tired from all the driving when we arrived back to Killarney, so we got pizza from Four Star Pizza and decided to go to a movie! We saw Jackie Chan’s “The Spy Next Door.” It was TERRIBLE in the best way possible. The acting was awful, but Jackie Chan is just so cute and his movies are always fun. Michael said this was his first movie where he didn’t do all his own stunts. So sad. He’s getting old.

After the movie we played Rummy and Michael whooped us! Final scores…. Michael: 285 (smelly winner) Lisa: -5 (+30,000…. TRUE winner) Em: 120 (coolest winner)

Because we’d driven so much the past two days and were going to be driving all the way back to Dublin, we decided to take the next day to stay nearby. We took our time in the morning and then drove to the park entrance (2k away) where we hiked to the Muckross Abbey.

(DETOUR) The weather this whole trip has been perfect. Very un-Irelandy. When you think of Ireland, you think of rain, right? Well…. We had a lot of sunshine. And, Friday was no different. When the sun was shining we all shed our layers and were in t-shirts.

We hiked over to the Muckross House, which is a large Victorian country home where Victoria herself came and visited for two days. To prepare for her visit, the homeowners spent 6 years planning! While we waited for our tour of the house, we walked around the gardens and sat in a little gazebo and picnicked with our usual brown soda bread, peanut butter, and nutella.

After touring the Muckross House that had a set of 10,000 year old antlers found in the bogs…. Along with all the BOG BODIES AHHH) we hiked up to Torc Waterfall. I felt like I was in a dream because the trees and rocks were all covered in moss and you could hear the waterfall well before you saw it. It was a gorgeous hike.

When we finally made it back to the car we figured we’d hiked about 10 k through the diverse terrains from gardens to mountains to lakes, to tropical looking forests, to Lord-of-the-Rings-looking-moss-covered forests.

Directly from the park we drove part of the Ring of Kerry to Kenmare for dinner. The drive was another gorgeous one. It was just before sunset and the sun was peeking out of clouds and shining on the barren mountains. Lisa called them “burnt toast mountains.”

In Kenmare we found a little pub called Foley’s (recommendation of Rick Steves) where our waiter spoke English but for the life of us we couldn’t understand a single word he said. They had a different sort of bread there, and I asked him “what is sweet in this bread?”, because it tasted banana-like, and he replied with something and started laughing and stood staring at me for a reaction, so I laughed too, having no idea why I was laughing. When he walked away, Michael said, “I think he said ‘sugar.’” The food was very good there and we had fun. I’ve loved our dinners on this trip.

We drove home in the dark, which was kinda scary, but also satisfying.

YESTERDAY Michael and I rose early again for another run before another delicious breakfast. Pancakes, eggs, yogurt, fresh fruit, Muesli, scones, and soda bread. FULL FOR LIFE.

We checked out of our hotel and drove until lunch where we stopped to picnic along a lake. The drive consisted of traditional Irish music (thanks dad!) and some sleepy kids. The picnic consisted of feeding the fish our moldy bread and throwing it at each other at which point Lisa lost her shoe while chasing Michael. She screamed so loud and bloodcurdlingly that Michael and I didn’t know what hit us. Of course, when seeing that the bog had tried to steal her shoe, I laughed so hard I had to cross my legs to keep from peeing.

We stopped in a little town called Roscrea that was not too far outside of Dublin where we heard an ice cream truck and flocked like all the children to get treats. The town was another castle town and there was this cool old building we were walking toward, only to find it was an Irish department store called Dunnes. Dunnes was casually chilling in a castle. TYPICAL Ireland.

We made it to our Holiday in at the airport and returned our car. 1000 kilometers later and the car was fully intact and we were fully intact.

We walked the 3 k back to our hotel and watched the end of Harry Potter number two and an Andrew Lloyd Webber reality show casting a Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz on West End! I was appalled, intrigued, and instantly addicted. It was hard to pull ourselves away to go to dinner. But, we were so glad we did.

Noel and Grainne picked us up and took us to a local restaurant called Anderson’s where I prefaced the dinner with a “my treat” and they agreed. So we loaded up on food and a history lesson and lots of laughter. At the end the stinkers said, “Thank you for the offer, but we’re picking up the tab.” Just another sign of their old school generosity. They took us on the same scenic drive I’d gone on with them to see the lights of the city. Lisa and Michael were raving about them afterward.

And now here I am headed to…well I can’t really say the daily grind, can I? Because I’d hardly call living in London “the grind.” So I guess I’ll say I’m headed back to my other temporary and extraordinary world, poised and ready for the next adventure.”