Dingle. No, for real. That's what it's called.

Well, my voice decided it wasn't needed here for about 3 days.  I'm not sure why it left, it was finally going to have the chance to speak English at a normal pace again.  Maybe it was protesting leaving France (I left my heart... and my voice? in France).  Maybe it wanted to sound like a veteran smoker, in solidarity with the French people it had just left.  (Ha, I kid).  So this was a fun little twist to my adventure.  But not the biggest twist!  I flew out of Marseille to meet my friend in Dublin.  Who, by the way, was meeting me in Ireland for a little post holiday vaca, because he's awesome like that.  Then we were going to drive aaaall the way across the country, a total of ...2 hours.  Ireland's not that big, folks.  We would take a little longer, of course.  Go kiss the Blarney stone, see a few castles, the usual.  But Fate had other plans!  

They're on my bad side now!

I was flying to Ireland on Ryanair, because hey, it's cheap.  I'm a no-frills kind of traveler anyway.  However, I AM an arrive-at-my-destination kind of traveler, and Ryanair failed to deliver on that score.  After leaving Marseille lots later than we were supposed to, I narrowly missed my connecting flight in London to Dublin.  Holding the plane for 10 minutes for me would have been amazing.  Putting me up in a hotel for the night would have been great.  Not charging me for missing my flight would have been the very least they could have done!  Especially since I missed my flight because I was... on one of their flights.  They did none of the above.  They did, however, put me on a flight for Kerry, a city on the west side of Ireland, the next afternoon.  So all in all, I ended up missing about 3/4 of a day in Ireland, Ryanair became an airline I will never use again, and life goes on.  

When my friend and I were discussing where to go, we knew Ireland would be one of the places we visited.  To be completely honest, I was lukewarm on visiting Ireland in general.  It's never been very high on my list of places to go, but the opportunity was there, as it is in Europe, and outside the Schengen zone, and therefore, available to me for visiting after France.  And my friend was excited.  So, first stop was to be Ireland.  After adjusting for the  delay in schedule (No Blarney Stone kissing, thanks Ryanair), our first stop in Ireland was now Dingle.  We knew basically nothing about it except that it's called Dingle.  But really, what else do you need to know?  And as it turned out, we were in for a treat.  

As with a lot of people, before I go traveling the world, I generally consult the travel guru, the head honcho of voyages, he who has done it all and will tell you how - Rick Steves.  We ended up listening to several of his podcasts while driving, and that, I think, really got me excited about being in Ireland.  He had Irish guests on his podcast show, and people would call in with their stories from when they traveled here.  Between the two of them (Rick and his guest), they seemed to know half the people the callers were talking about meeting.  I really got the sense that the people here are open, friendly, and happy to welcome you to their country.  I feel like this Irish saying sums it up well: "There are no strangers here, only friends you haven't met yet."  I love that.

Ireland has an interesting but rough history, all the way up through modern times.  Keeping their culture alive is vital to the people here.  In an effort to keep the Gaelic language alive, it's used in places like street signs, and people receive subsidies for learning and speaking it.  One thing I thought very interesting is how the people here have embraced their tourism industry and allowed it to change them.  For example, Irish pubs are known for being a place that you would go for an evening to listen to great live, local music.  But that's actually a relatively recent thing, which happened because tourists came here looking for that experience.  Smart, Ireland.  Smart.

So after a quick dinner of McDonalds (don't judge me!), we made it to Dingle around evening, checked in, and then wandered around town in search of food. 

Dingle is on a peninsula, and there's a road that you can follow that loops around, called... are you ready for this?  It's called the Dingle Loop.  I'm sure it's even more breathtaking on a clear day, but even covered in clouds and gray sky, it was so beautiful, and most definitely worth the entire trip out to see it.

   

After a quick stop in Galway, and by quick I mean an hour, in which we saw a street fair that looked like it was related to the circus somehow, and a guy dropping his dog off and driving away (??!! I'm just going to assume the dog likes to take daily walks along the river), we headed cross country to Dublin!  I should have known this, but you should expect to double your expected travel time when driving.  You definitely want the chance to pull off the road and check out any random thing that catches your interest.  My friend saw a castle and pulled off the highway so we could visit it.  And bless his eyes, I'm so glad he did!  


The castle he saw is Trim Castle, the one they 
filmed a lot of Braveheart in.  

All the rocks in the ground made terrible farming, but made all the cute walls possible!

The Cliffs of Moher, or as they are better known, the Cliffs of Insanity!  

It's about 700 ft down from where I'm peeking over the edge there

The food, well, it's not as good as France, bless them.

Soda bread.  Just as dry and crumbly as it is in the US.  I'm sorry, I'm just not a big fan.

Take tours.  Irish people are connected to their history and traditions, and enjoy sharing their stories.

Ireland rocks! (heh.  Get it?)