ireland - day 2

the villas, inside & out. we're in one of the end units, so we only share walls with one neighbor. and either the walls are well sound-proofed or no one is living next door.

fabulous irish brogue story of the day: we stop at the manor house this morning to ask about the internet not working. a fellow named patrick comes out to help us, mentions it may simply be the card that's not working and offers to give us another one to try. we agree to give it a shot, both wondering what we'll do with an internet card that we probably won't know how to install. but it's worth a shot, right? so he goes in back & comes out carrying a coiled ethernet cable and says, "here ya go, try this card. if it doesn't work, just bring it back & we'll have someone come out and look at it for you." immediately, in our heads, we both say, "oooooh! you said CORD!" luckily we didn't embarrass ourselves by saying it out loud. :) i do love the irish brogue.

as a side note, the card did not work. we'll return it tomorrow and probably just make our peace with being internet-less in the villa. we can use the manor house business centre if we need to, but being disconnected on vacation isn't such a bad thing. (you vicarious-livers will just have to be patient.)


today was my first day of driving. it didn't take as long to get used to as i thought. oh, and we have a new car! katie, our gps unit, came with a card that plugs into the cigarette lighter to charge her battery, but it doesn't fit snugly. so every time the car shakes it turns off & on, which really puts katie in a tizzy. so we returned the original car & got a different one. still tiny, still cute. :) it actually ended up being an issue with the card, and not the car ... but the fellow already had the paperwork done to swap cars before we realized that. so we got both. :)

yeah, driving. not as hard to get used to as i thought it would be. some of the roads tend to be narrow, and i think katie actually enjoys directing us through ridiculous routes. it's fun ... and a bit scary. :) she took us down one road today that there was NO WAY two cars could have passed each other. however, luck of the irish, we didn't see another car on that road so it was never an issue.



we did, however, see a fabulous cemetery today, so we stopped to take photos. i'm sure the locals think american tourists are crazy. to them, this was just another cemetery. but for us, it's all this fabulous history - the likes of which we'll never have here. and the fact it was on a hill overlooking a beach? just another luck-of-the-irish bonus, i'm sure.


today's big goal was to visit the cliffs of insanity, from princess bride. okay, so the goal was to visit the cliffs of mohr ... but they ARE the cliffs of insanity from princess bride. and they ARE amazing. :) if we had more time, i'd suggest we return to the cliffs later in the afternoon some day. that way, the sun would be behind us, lighting up the cliff sides for better photos. we were surprised at the weather, however. so far, we haven't hit any real rain ... i think we used the windshield wipers once today. i mean, the wipers literally made one single pass across the windshield. not what we were expecting. luck of the irish, again?


this is the view if you turn away from the cliffs of mohr. i suppose it might technically still be part of the cliffs of mohr, but it's opposite the famous pictures. regardless, this view had the sun hitting it quite nicely. :)


i think they want visitors to be aware of the danger of the cliffs.

we had lunch at the cliffs of mohr visitor centre and did a little souvenir shopping, as well. i found a sweatshirt that i really liked, but they didn't have my size. hopefully i can find it elsewhere, or at least another one i like. it just seems right that i should take home a green sweatshirt that says ireland. :)


hey, even in ireland i can shoot photos while i drive, right? :)


irish countryside with that clear sunny sky that surprised us.


after the cliffs, we headed northeast through the burren, an especially rocky area that was home to the poulnabrone portal tomb. pretty amazing to look at, and the rocky landscape was slightly baffling. i felt like i might have been walking on the moon. i mean, i know i wasn't ... but it was really cool.

after the portal tomb & the burren we continued north to ballyvaughn and then a little ways east to hit a major road to take back to the manor. the tiny roads were thrilling during the daylight ... but i really wanted to avoid them once the sun set. :) we ended up having dinner at this little cafe with fabulous pizza & delectable desserts in the town of gort.

tomorrow we're heading to dublin - big city, here we come! :)

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'becca had an amazing day today.