I don’t have a brother, or many friends, so I may be off base here. But if I was Drama, and had dedicated my entire life to my baby bro (cooked for him, protected him, cared for him, poured out all the booze when he came home from rehab), I would be livid that he chose E as his best man.
Luckily tonight starts the new season of Survivor, where I don’t have to worry about such complicated issues.
our next stop was dingle. Stop laughing. No seriously, stop laughing. You can’t, right? Dingle. LOL.
Ok, now that we have that out of our system, dingle (!) is a small town on a peninsula in southwest Ireland.
Just like everywhere else in Ireland, it is the most beautiful place I have ever been. By this point in the trip, I have to admit that I am getting a little tired of the natural beauty. I could really use the convenience of a Duane Reade right about now. For example, as we drove into dingle with the ocean hugging the left side of the road we could see from afar a small cluster of people riding horseback on the sandy beach and galloping towards the sunset. I mean, c’mon, right? Am I in a Kevin Costner movie?
We arrived in the early evening after our long drive through the ring of Kerry, so headed out for dinner and then a couple of pints (half pints) at the dingle pub. The dingle pub was everything one might hope for in an Irish pub. A nice relaxing atmosphere. Good live music. A bartender who is probably a fifth generation owner of the establishment. It was all very quaint. The musician was playing old Irish tunes and everyone sang along. I loved it unconditionally. And then, the singer said, “who is from Scotland?” silence. “anyone from the UK?” Crickets. “how about the USA?”. The bar erupted. We were essentially in the times square of dingle. But I didn’t care. I still loved it.
That experience got me thinking about tourism generally. I always want to seek out the things that are off the beaten path and more local in flavor. But maybe that’s not what I really want. Maybe we just want to experience things the way we expect them to be. I always get frustrated by tourists that come to new York and spend too much time in times square. I feel like they miss so much of what makes the city great. But if youre not from new York, times square probably feels epic. Why would you want to find a quaint little bistro in soho?
With that in mind, anne and I were headed off to Galway. I hear there is a great hard rock cafe there.
After Anne won Ireland with her hurling knowledge, we headed towards our next destination, the Dingle Peninsula. But on the way, a number of people and guidebooks, and internets had pointed us to the ring of Kerry as a must see destination while on our trip. Before I get to that, a small confession: Anne and I are not the most studious travelers. We usually buy a guidebook and use it to plan out our trip, but we like to make decisions on the go and explore cities and areas without following the books verbatim. This means, that we often visit somewhere and then afterwards read the guidebook to see if we missed anything. As a result, our vacations involve a decent period of self-loathing when we discover amazing things to do two days after we leave one destination and head to another. Hold on to that thought while (whilst) I describe the ring of Kerry.
About three miles before arriving in Kerry county, anne and I stopped for lunch to figure out what exactly it is. Turns out, it is a road that goes through a number of different towns in county Kerry Ireland. The drive puts Ireland’s natural beauty on display and winds through mountains, oceans, sheep, cows, towns, and merchandise shops. It is epically beautiful. The stunning thing about Ireland is the contrast between the lush green meadows and the searing blue ocean. The land remains largely undeveloped and natural, so the drives from one point to another are as much a destination as they are a journey.
It’s hard to explain how terrifying being the driver on the ring of Kerry can be, but I will try. start by picturing Lombard street in San Francisco. Now, shrink it slightly so that maybe one car and one bicycle can safely fit side by side. Next, picture that on one side of the road is a small rock wall built in 310 BC that provides the only protection from the ocean and on the other side of the road is oncoming traffic, a giant mountain, and a flock of sheep. Oh, and don’t forget that everyone is still driving on the opposite side of the road. Essentially, that is the ring of Kerry. The most harrowing fact is that the speed limit on the road is 100 km/hr. I’m no mathematician, but based on my calculation of how fast the Irish people were driving as they came towards me, it is just shy of 90mph. Those assholes also love tailgating and passing whenever they have an opportunity.
Midway through our drive, just as the skies darkened, the rain started pouring down, and the windows fogged up from the steady stream of sweat dripping down my face, disaster struck. The tour buses started to come back from their day long trip, which prompted the following exchange:
Rob: Jesus this is terrifying.
Anne: I know, right?
Rob: it sort of feels like we are going the wrong direction.
Anne: [nervous laugh]
Rob: are we going the wrong way???????????
Anne: I’m just reading the guidebook now and it says, “it is strongly recommended that you drive the ring of Kerry in an anti-clockwise direction.”
Whoops. As another tour bus zipped by – and by zipped by, I do mean that it forced me to essentially veer the car off a cliff into the ocean – the car became silent, mostly because I was navigating the hairpin turns, anne was in a constant state of terror, and we were both vowing to do a better job establishing a travel plan in the future.
On the brightside, we didn’t follow Anne’s initial pre guidebook plan: “we should bike the ring of Kerry.”
Rob Complains About Things 