Kerry Excursion

This past weekend was so eventful and fulled with sights, scenes, touring etc. I don't even know where to begin! We left on Thursday morning and began our 3 1/2 hour journey to the town of Killarney. Killarney is such a cute little town, it only has about 5,000 residents and is sort of like a smaller more quaint version of Galway. We stopped at a little pub to have lunch called Tatler Jacks and walked around town for a little while until we had to be back on the bus to go to Ross castle. The day was absolutely beautiful and when in the sun it was actually really warm! Our group had fun climbing up the sides of the castle walls and taking pictures. For a castle, it wasnt all that great as it was pretty destroyed and was hard to imagine what it would have actually looked like but was fun nonetheless. We then drove back to Killarney to check into our Hostel 'Neptunes.' Hostels always make me nervous as there are so many people that stay in them and may not always be the cleanest, however our room was very clean, and we even got passes that we had to show to a security guard to let us in which made me feel a lot more secure. After we settled in, we went to Penneys down the street! I told myself that I was not going to back into Penney's for a long time as every time I go in, I end up spending way too much... I went in and 50 euros later came out with a new pair of shoes, jeans, a tank top, sweatshirt, and earrings! oops. We then went back to the hostel and made dinner in the kitchen and then got ready to go out for the night. We went to this bar called the Grand with traditional Irish music. There were surprisingly a lot of Americans at the pub and as we started talking with this group of golfers, found out that they were all from Minnesota! I talked with one man who lived only a few miles from my house haha! They were in Ireland on a golf trip as they were the founders of the store Golf Galaxy. It is crazy how small this world is and when you get talking with people, you can make start to make the strangest of connections. (I also went to high school with another mans nephew!) Our group then went to the back of the bar where the night club was and danced the rest of the night!!
On Saturday morning, we woke up and drove to the Muckross castle. The castle is most noted for Queen Victoria visit to it in 1843. We toured the castle and then walked around on the grounds which were gorgeous! The castle overlooked the lake with mountains on the other side. I definetely wouldn't mind living there :) We drove another 2 hours to get to the Skellig experience which was a 20 minute documentary about a mountain. It was really not worth the 2 hour drive, but at least the scenery along the way was beautiful.We then drove back 2 hours and stopped at a waterfall along the way which was so cool! We were supposed to stay only 10 minutes, but when we got there, another tour group searching for an 83 year old man that had been missing over an hour. We joined in the search, and after 45 minutes found the man who had wandered off and was deep into the woods. It was quite the eventful day and felt so good to be back at the hostel.
On Saturday, we got up early again and drove to the Tra li museum which was not overly exciting but still cool to see the exhibits. We then drove around the Dingle peninsula and encountered the most scariest thing on the way there. While we were driving through the mountains, we reached a point where the road was down to one lane with the mountain on the right side and a cliff edge with no guard rail on the left. Our bus driver Jerry, was driving very cautiously when another car came whizzing around the corner. I had started taking a video of the scenery about 20 seconds prior to this happening, and all of a sudden, my video camera flew out of my hand and to the front of the bus. Jerry slammed on the brakes as the bus fish tailed with the back of the wheels at the edge of the cliff. The other car was wedged in between our bus and the mountain and the lady driving got out screaming at our bus to back up. We tried explaining to the irrational lady that if we backed up, our bus would go straight over the cliff. At this time, we all moved to the right side of the bus to offset the weight as a precaution because we could not get out since the door (which is on the left) opened up straight on to the cliff edge. After explaining to the lady that we could not do anything and that it was her fault for speeding around a curve on a one way road, she had to keep driving her car, scraping the whole left side and taking off her mirror. After about 20 minutes we were all safe and kept on driving. We arrived at our destination, the Blasket museum and after another 20 minute documentary, were on our way once again. On Saturday night, we went to a show at the Kerry folk theater. It was a traditional Irish dance performance which I enjoyed a lot! We got back to our hostel at 11pm and I was so tired I went straight to bed!
On Sunday, our only thing on the agenda was the Cliffs of Moher! I was so excited as I have wanted to see the Cliffs for a really long time! We drove to Dooley and had lunch, and then drove down to the ferry port to get on a boat so we could see the cliffs from the ocean. At first, the ride was so much fun as our whole group was on the back of the ferry. But as we started getting deeper into the ocean, the waves came all the way over our boat and got us soaked. I started to panic a little as the boat started to get very tipsy and would lean all the way over letting in hundreds of gallons of water into the boat. When we reached the end of the cliffs, I started feeling queezy of course and had to close my eyes for the rest of the way back to shore. Overall, it was a memorable experience that I will remember for ever. We then drove to the top of the cliffs and I took a ton of pictures as it was the most perfect day! It was so crazy to look over and see the ferrys go by in the ocean, and see how tiny they are compared to the cliffs. After the cliffs, we headed back to the Park Lodge which felt soo good to be back after such a crazy fun filled excursion. I will post pictures as soon as I can but right now my computer isnt working and im not sure how to post pictures with my Ipad.
On Wednesday morning, we leave again for a long excursion to Northern Ireland and I cant wait!
: ) H