left, then left, then left again!

first off, to uncle tom, gwen, ken and iain, i'm thinking of you, and also granny and grandad. i hope you are all doing ok.

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the ring of kerry tour was great! the bus driver was hard to understand though, his accent was so thick. we got the gist of what he was saying though, which was all that mattered. we went to a traditional bog village with thatched roof houses and saw what the houses used to be like. we tried an irish coffee for the first time, and it was the last time i ever have one. YUCK! i only had one sip; i'm so glad i didnt finish it as the bus ride was so bumpy it would have come back up. the second stop was a sheep dog demonstration. we saw what real border collies are like (no offence monty and stolly) each dog had its own commands for left, right, forward, stop. they had different whistle commands also. the farmer got the dogs to bring the sheep down the mountain; then separate them and then take them back. very impressive. the scenery was amazing; there were so many mountains and lakes and cliffs and green stuff. and the roads were SO narrow. at one point there was a larger coach ahead of us manouvering around a four wheel drive, and then the four wheel drive was coming directly at us. i dont know how they do it! we also went to 'ladies view' where queen victorias ladies 'paused' to look at the view. and tom cruise did a movie there, but we dont know which one because we couldnt understand the driver.

** a note from the night before:

we went to murphy's ice cream shop (there are at least 3 places called murphy's in each town we have been to... crazy) and they had a promotion on: guess the mystery flavour and get a free scoop of ice cream. so miss foodie sitting next to me HAD to have a go! she made me ask for it though, so i got the tiny sample of ice cream and dutifully passed it over. it was gone in half a second. jess' face changed from a curious look to an 'examining the flavour' look, to 'breaking down the different ingredients' look to wonder: what is this mysterious flavour. then, SUDDENLY, just as i thought she was going to say "oh, what IS that? i know it so well..." she comes out with "is that baileys??" the girl behind the counter was shocked! "oh me god, yer te firrrst perrrson all day!" and looked very impressed. jess got her free scoop of icecream and came away looking very pleased with herself, because jess doesnt even like baileys!

after killarney we made our way to kilkenny. i say made our way because it was a freaking long journey. we went from killarney to mallow, mallow to dublin heuston, dublin heuston to kilkenny on the waterford line. we left at 0950 and arrived at 1705. crazy train system. anyone going to ireland do NOT get a eurail pass! the buses are SO cheap and they go everywhere! we passed a few railway bridges on the ring of kerry tour and the bus driver pointed them out like antiques. "oh, that theres the old railway bridge, hasnt been used for 50 years after we got the bus system" but thats ok. we got here in the end. at kilkenny train station we stood at the map for half an hour trying to find the big YOU ARE HERE label, but alas there was none. do they expect us to be able to find a tiny square on the map that says bus and train station? clearly we knew to look... we met some american guys at the map who were going to the same hostel as us. we asked a local for directions and we got the famous "well you go down here a fair way, then turn left at the yellow building, not the blue one, if you see the blue one you've gone the wrong way, but thats ok, you can turn left at the third roundabout and you'll get back to where you started" directions and managed to find the hostel fairly quickly.

the hostel is very nice. the owner lives here as well, so it feels very homely. it also has two gorgeous dogs named tilda and sonny. the town itself is a lot smaller that we thought, with only a couple of main streets. we went to the castle with nate and jake and wandered most of the town in a couple of hours. then we just played cards for hours and last night we went to the pub to see a local band. it was awesome because it was just a tiny two person band with three hundred different types of instruments. very irish, very nice.

today we pretty much walked around the town again, until the rain set in and we decided to mosey on back to the hostel. we might go to a pub called Ryans (next to murphy's) tonight because the guy who owns the hostel said the music would be really cool.

all in all, kilkenny has been ok, but i much preferred killarney. off to waterford tomorrow for the day which will be nice to have a change in scenery :)