Kinsale:
So we arrived in Kinsale on Sunday (8/8) afternoon and it immediately reminded me of the island of Paros, Greece. It took us a couple of hours to drive out of the city on Sunday but once we starting to head into farm country we were able to relax those white knuckles (referenced below) and enjoy the country side. Ireland countryside belongs on a postcard, every part of it, and Kinsale is no exception. Kinsale is a small port town, south of Cork. There seems to be families from all over the world enjoying vacation here at the moment, we had breakfast this morning and heard French and tonight at dinner we heard Israli- we’ve also heard Dutch, German, English (Brits), Spain-ish Spanish, and Gaeltic, oh and Irish. Kinsale is the Cannon Beach of Ireland we’ve decided and for those of you who have been to Cannon Beach, you know exactly what I’m talking about, though in the place of every terrible trinket shop there is a pub, and significantly more food options. We rented a house here for a few days to enjoy this lovely town and spend some down time before the family arrives and we meet up with them on Wednesday in Rosslare.
This is how we started our mornings in Kinsale
Bubba pondering with his pipe.
Wait to be seated here.
Snack time!
Learning to Drive
I’m happy to report that I was able to recover my notes from our trip with blog posts in progress- I’ll be posting them and filling in where I left off, even though its already been a month since we’ve been home.
Bubba’s experiences with driving on the “wrong” side of the road:
- Bubba swore several times, often trying to imitate an Irish accent
- We hit the left shoulder more than once, luckily the rental car that we received is completely scuffed up on the left hand side so some other dumb American’s before us already took care of the job,
- White knuckles are still present
- Do as your mother taught you and look BOTH ways before entering traffic and trying to cross the street (on foot or by car)
- The yellow ones don’t stop.
- Round-a-bouts in foreign countries make a lot of sense to everyone who isn’t American. We once again tried to take a concept that works just find in other countries an apply it ourselves with different rules because we think WE ARE BETTER THAN THAT.
- A victory beer is well earned after driving on 6 national motorways, toll roads and regional highways.
Maps- they really are a wonderful thing. Despite the fact that I still get my left and rights mixed up (all the time) my internal compass really does quite well especially in foreign countries. While Bubba was busy keeping his eyes glued to the road I usually find myself in the passenger seat, revising our route, investigating alternatives and consulting our guidebooks so our routes intersect into something fun to see or do. We often have more fun picking out alternative routes and pulling over to take photos or stop in for a nip to the loo because we have no set destination or time requirements.
Every shade of green
Ireland is riddled with every shade of green imaginable, from light sage and “seafoam” to hunter green (my favorite crayon color) and green that almost looks black. Its as if God decided to show off his studies in hue and shade and saturation using chlorophyll. And then to top it, green’s parent colors of yellow and blue were in equal abundance, so you feel like you’ve just walked into a really life art class, one that is going to make your eye’s pop out of your head because its so beautiful you can’t possibly take it in. My camera failed to capture it in its true form (operator error on my part is so what to blame) but I’m not really sure its possible to grasp it until you’ve seen it with your own eyes.
So, if there is one recommendation to take away from all of this, GO. GO TO IRELAND. If its not on the top of you list to go and see, make sure its number 2. And when you get there, make sure you spend time driving the small narrow roads that lead you no where through the country side and stop every so often to take it in.
Dessert First
Just to give you a taste of what we were up to while on vacation. Many thoughts to come but the program I did all of that pondering on won’t read the file on my mac. Boo. For now, lets just say that Bubba had a lot of fun with this series he’d like to entitle:
Sarah’s Crepe Chowdown
To many choices!
The excitment is building!
Bananas and Nutella
Dig in with fierceness!
Messy goodness!
Amazing!
