They say "The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain", but despite the lovely assonance, the phrase is delightfully untrue. While lots of Ireland (as far as I know Dublin, Cork and Limerick, but who knows what else) is being inundated with floods (and who here is surprised?), here in Barcelona we have nothing, nothing but glorious, yellow, melanoma-inducing sun. And Barcelona is pretty damn flat, so you can forget all about the rain on the plain nonsense.
Anyway, I´m getting ahead of myself. Last you all heard I was about to head off into the rolling hills of Ireland for my last look at the Emerald Isle. Erik came to pick me up at work on Friday night after some emotional (but thankfully not teary) goodbyes at work and we drove all the way to Cork. Well, Erik drove all the way to Cork, I can´t drive manual cars. When we got there I was absolutely beat, so we just headed up to the dorm room for a nap. Who should I find in there but a self-confessed bogan from Townsville, Qld, who I immediately took a shine to and we gasbagged for about two hours until the others arrived at the hostel. Although I do my best to avoid Australians overseas, it still is nice when you meet one once in a while and you can share some cultural history! We went down to the bar with Raúl, Elena and the gang and had a beer, at which point the others went pubcrawling and I stayed in the bar to finish my one beer, with the intention of very soon vacating the bar and finishing my book and my nap upstairs. A drunk redhead from Northern Ireland didn´t figure in my plans, but that´s life...he proceeded to earbash me until I finally made my exuses and headed up to my bed. Advice for any single guys out there: If you want to talk to a chick, a) don´t be drunk, and b) make the conversation interesting. Going on about about how you hate your job and how many times you moved from Scotland to Northern Ireland and back does not a fun night make.
Next morning I was up and at 'em...the others not so much. It took them sooooo long (I'm talking time measured in hours here) to get ready that Erik and I took off without them. We wandered around Cork for the morning, took in the English Market, which was very interesting, especially for the food-obsessed! Also went to the Gaol, which I thought was very interesting, if a little corny. I don´t think the others were convinced. Cork is very charming, I´d recommend anyone wanting to move to Ireland to seriously consider living there instead of Dublin. It´s practically the same, only smaller, more traditional Irish, and cheaper.
In the afternoon it was the long drive to Kerry, and for me another multi-hour battle to stay awake. The movement of the car puts me right to sleep, but I try to stay awake to entertain Erik a little bit! We chat a little, laugh a little, eat a little, swear at the lack of signage a little...
We get to Kerry in time to check in at the hostel and make a delicious spaghetti bolognaise. Then we had some Guinness outside under the stars, with a guitar. Erik and I were tired so we went to bed before the others, who were well sloshed by the time they fell into bed! Consequently Erik and I were up practically at the crack of dawn and were showered and finished breaky by the time the others were up. They were going to the Ring of Kerry so we bade them farewell and set off to discover Dingle, only a short drive away. We decided to go horseriding, and were undeterred by the sudden downpour of sheets of rain from the skies. This is Ireland, after all! It should disappear in the time it takes for you to drink a cup of coffee, and it did. The afternoon was gorgeous as we mounted our rides and set off into the hills. They didn´t let us trot or anything, so the horse riding itself was kind of boring, but the views were fantastic and the weather corroborated so we had a great time.
After we dismounted we headed straight for Doolin, which is half way to what we thought was our destination, Galway. We tried to go up the west coast of Ireland, which is extraordinarily beautiful, something like the Great Ocean Road. But there was a prang about an hour into the drive, and we had to turn back and drive all the way back to Dingle. Later it transpired that we had been going the wrong way anyway, so that was a blessing in disguise. That was just the beginning. We took wrong turns, the journey was longer than we thought, the ferry wasn´t where we thought it was, etc. etc. I´ll save you the long boring story and give you the short version: We ended up in Doolin after dark, mentally exhausted, irritable and hungry. At that hour, 22:00, the only food you can get in Doolin is a skanky Chinese, so skanky Chinese it was. Then we headed to the pub for a pint, as per Irish law. Only one pint though, as Erik was particularly wrecked from all the driving, which was a shame as a traditional Irish singalong had started up in the bar and the atmosphere was very jolly, although us and the barmen were the only people under 50.
The next day we got up early and headed for Galway to catch the ferry to the Aaran Islands. Only when we were half way there, our friend Noel rang and informed us there´s a ferry to the islands from Doolin! Erik was fuming, especially when we made it to Galway and it turned out there were no more ferries we could take that day. I didn´t mind, I´d only been to Galway once, three years ago and under the cover of darkness, so I was quite happy just to explore the town, which really is quite cute.
Not wanting to spend the night in Galway and another day that we really needed to pack, we headed back into the car and poor Erik drove us all the way back to Dublin. We got back tired but contented, at least we had bid farewell properly to the island that had been our home for the last three years, and had been the catalyst for our relationship.
For those of you that are interested in that sort of thing, here is a vague routeplan of where we went:
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The next day we only slept in a little bit (we were tired!) and headed off to Newgrange, which turned out to be an ancient mound tomb from one million BC or something. Actually the site was really interesting, the tomb is 100% pitch black inside and they do a simulation of how the light comes into the tomb on the solstice, which, for me, is just as good as the real thing. Also they have a little Newgrange museum next door, which has really great and interactive exhibitions. The entry price is about €7 or something, so well worth it.
We gave the car back that afternoon, and from there on in it was four days of hectic packing, sending stuff, and farewell dinners until *whoosh*...the plane took off and we had no plans to return.
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