My life has been reduced to...

tours & cute boys... HAHA!

So you've lucked out and this blog really should be a rush (comparatively speaking) -- #1, I haven't been writing details down because I've been so exhausted - and #2, I'm currently too exhausted to make a huge effort on the blogging scene! :)

So.

2nd and last day in Killarney was a day tour to Dingle Peninsula. It was an all-day event, starting at 10:30am and getting back to town around 5-5:30. Here's the gist:

- really great tour guide: lots of stopping to take pics, lots of info on the places we saw, lots of silence for us to soak in the information and sights.

- I wish I could say more about the tour itself, but that's what I get for waiting 3 days to post! *sigh* Hopefully I will be able to recal more with more sleep and once I've gone through my pics... ?

Yesterday was a whirlwind:

We left Killarney at 6am in order to take a pitstop in Limerick to settle my financial stuff and set up a bank account before continuing on to Galway.

Got to Galway around 4pm and found our hostel after only one wrong turn.

I LOVE OUR HOSTEL!!!!

This place is PHENOMENAL! :)

It really is like a relatively nice motel - with balconies off our rooms and a reading lamp for every bed! I am sooooo impressed! It didn't hurt that a beautiful frenchman with black hair & blue eyes checked us in... *sigh*

We got settled and turned around to do our usual 1st night in a new city wandering. We visited the Spanish Arch in Galway last night - it was by a shore with ton(ne)s of seagulls & swans... beautiful. And we also found a bagel place where the guy actually SMILED as he served us! It was quite a shock, let me tell you! You'll have to read Ky's blog to hear about her adventure with bagels -- I will remind her to post that story :)


Early night. On the way back to the hostel, we were approached by a cute american (Chicago) looking for the same place, so we escorted him. It turns out that his name is Mike (a pretty popular name in my world) and that he works in film. We only found that out after running into him on accident about 10 times around the hostel and then this morning as we were heading off on tours... keep in mind that when I say "hostel," I don't mean 50 ppl... we're talking by the hundreds, I'm sure. Just in case you thought it wouldn't be a huge thing to run into a guy 10 times in as many hours. In this hostel, Ky & I have separate rooms for the 1st 2 nights, so we're meeting several new people. In my room, I have met a Canadian from Ottawa who is going to the University of Galway for a history exchange - her name is Roxanne - and an australian whose name I have completely blanked on who has moved here on a work visa and is a paralegal... both great girls!

Today was another tour day. Now, you'd think a person wouldn't get so tired out from sitting in a bus for 8 hrs, but you would be mistaken! We went on a Cliffs of Moher/Burren tour today. The Burren is a huge limestone world that involves 320 million years of evolution and hundreds of plant species that are only native to Ireland, the mediterranean and, like, one other place... (I really wish I wasn't so tired - sorry for being a slacker!)


The cliffs of Moher are almost 700 ft high and are strata of rock formations (I am sure I didn't state that correctly!) - the tour guide described it as cake layers, if that helps? Today was the sunniest day in years and the 1st time since the tour guide can remember when one was able to actually SEE the cliffs - the last several years have been so rainy & foggy that tourists were unable to see them - but what an amazing view we got today!

The tour was definitely a memorable event in the guy department for me, too! We sat in the back with a guy from Argentinian who is working in Dublin until December. Two words: beauty - full. Oh, I do have a pic! :) We had a blast talking when our driver wasn't interrupting us with useful information! And he offered to let me try his mate (mah-tay) tea, but it was cold, so I declined. Again - for those of you who know the "hot danish guy" story from my travels on a bus from NC to NB - I managed to spend an entire day with a guy and not get his name... MAN, I am bad at that!!!

This tour guide was terribly funny and informative - we learned the entire irish history in cliff notes format - but he talked more than the last guy and I had really enjoyed the moments of silence at Dingle...

Tour over, cute argentinian gone forever, haven't seen the chicagoan yet, supper and back to the hostel - hope I don't pass out before I call my mom at 6 her time! yeah, right.

Next: Galway city self-guided tour & a trip out to Inis Mor (Aran Islands) on Thursday.

Hopefully, the next post won't be as B-O-R-I-N-G.

I LOVE YOU ALL!