Reliving the glory of being 8 again: The Ring of Kerry

Huge shout out to my family for visiting me this week, and reminding me that there is in fact another place in the world that possesses warmth, sunlight, and short-wearing temperature.

(Also, I heard this week you write a lot like the people you read, so I'll try to avoid using the Ulysses style Joyce is so fond of)

So, as I was listing places to go to in Ireland, taking advice from friends both at home and study abroad, I was told there was one place I absolutely couldn't miss: The Cliffs of Moher...

That's a nice looking coast, you might say

And I haven't been there yet, but also, I was told that the Ring of Kerry was nice as well. SO! That brings us to our story.

After my family arrived on Easter Sunday, I took them on a small walking tour of the city centre of Dublin. Everything was basically closed down for the bank holiday the first two days I could spend with them, but we did the Hop-on Hop-off tour and saw Boyle's tomb at St. Patrick's cathedral (of Boyle's law fame, WHERE MY SCIENCE N3RDS @), went to the Guinness factory to do the 360 bar (this is time #2),  and drove through phoenix park to see the wild red deer that inhabit it. It was quite a treat, and I ate better in those two days than I had in my entirety of cooking for myself in Ireland.

This is week 11/12 of UCD's courses, so unfortunately I didn't get to spend too much time with them tuesday-thursday due to final projects and rehearsals for La Revencha de Romeo y Julieta (showing this monday/thursday in a theatre far away from you). I managed to take out Patrice and Allison on Wednesday night, going on a small pub crawl to show them the wonders of the irish bar. We actually met someone from TN in Temple bar, small world, eh?

So, after my family went off to the Cliffs of Moher on thursday, I was all set to go spend the day with them on friday (my day off from classes) to see the west coast of Ireland in all its pastoral tranquility. Patrice decided that she didn't want to spend another 9 hours in the car, so she stayed behind as we piled in at 9 o clock for our trip to the County Kerry.

After snoozing for the first few hours (I knew all the sheep on the way by this point, no reason to stay awake and see them again), we hit Killarny at around noonish? This signifies the start of the ring, and we decided to do it counter clockwise. I'll go ahead and post some photos here:

If you look really close, you can see a leprechaun

Oh, it's actually in this one

Did I say Leprachaun? I meant a Laugh-ness monster

(It's Nessie's Irish cousin)

Well, anyways, we stopped at a seafood place about 1/3rd of the way through to eat and grab the mandatory pint of Guinness. QC's. Seafood. If you're ever driving through, it's not bad. It didn't start raining until well after halfway through, and it was just overall a jarring experience being in a car again.

That's not a comment on dad's anyone's driving, it's just sitting in the back seat of a car with packed food and a book reminded me of the younger days when we would trip to Florida or the mountains for a weekend break.

But overall, I would say that Lonely Planet accurately described the experience as "Jaw-dropping" with incredibly contrast between the vast open ocean and the sharp jagged purple mountains looming over you. It's the only place I've been where I could've seen something like that with so few people. But it didn't feel super tourist-y, the people were generally nice, and I got some wicked pictures out of it.

I bet Patrice was sad she stayed at home.

Not a bad trip, team Thompson. Thanks for coming!

Other notes: If you're interested in coming to see the show (or a recording), please let me know! Also, I'm feeling in a really baseball mood right now, half-season tickets to the Durham Bulls for the summer, anyone? One more week of class!