Donde Esta La Biblioteca? Otra Vez

On our second day in Dublin we hopped on the commuter rail to a small town just 20 minutes outside the city called Dun Laoghaire (pronounced ‘Done Leary’.) It’s a quaint, seaside Irish village with a beautiful park, a large harbor, and a long ocean front promenade. We ate lunch, took some pictures, and cruised back to Dublin where we would meet our interesting new hostel roommates.

While I was downstairs in the dining room talking to a young French computer scientist who was nervous about his new job in Washington DC on account of the number of Americans (including me) who have pointed out the extremely high crime crate found in our nation’s capital, Lauren was struggling to understand the thick Scottish accent of our new roommate. Mark, as it turns out, is an avid fan of roller coasters. He has been to 26 U.S. states “collecting” roller coasters with around 100 of his buddies in the Great Britain Roller Coaster Club. We (and our other Aussie roommate, Karen) learned a lot about Mark throughout the night. The fact that we could hardly understand him didn’t deter him the least bit from talking a mile a minute. We eventually realized he is a really good guy and a verrry big dork.

The next day we took a bus to Kilkenny. It was a pretty town with loads of tourists during the day and a fun local nightlife after dark. We cooked dinner at the hostel along side some self righteous Canadians who were just beginning their year long trip around the world.

Later, we had a pint or 2 in the basement of a local pub. There was a guitarist covering Johnny Cash (or trying to at least), a big crowd, and a “Hen Party” – the Irish equivalent of a bachelorette party. To end the night, we went upstairs and tried a pint of the local beer brewed in Kilkenny, Smithwick’s, and talked amongst the sounds of one of Europe’s worst DJs.

While waiting for the bus to Cork the next morning, we met a guy from Plano. He was nearing the end of his European trip and was proud to tell us he ran with the bulls in Pamplona. The best part about Cork was the slammin’ Chinese food we found and devoured (I devoured, Lauren ate gracefully.)

The next day, we caught a bus to Dingle and arrived to a sky full of sun. We dropped our bags, grabbed our cameras and set out on the 30-minute walk from our hostel to the Dingle town center.

A couple of nights earlier, Lauren had discovered that the McAuliffe clan originated somewhere around the area and it was really cool to think that her ancestors lived in such a picturesque landscape. After perusing the small harbor town of about 1,500 inhabitants, we grabbed a can of Bulmer’s Cider from the grocery store and watched the sun go down over the sea.

Later that night, it was hard to find a pub that wasn’t crammed full of tourists, but we eventually wandered into the Small Bridge Bar situated a ways back from the main drag. A violinist and harpist played a “mighty traditional session” and the Guinness flowed. The 20-minute walk back to the hostel was a lot less charming in the rainy pitch black of night, but we made it back alive and were welcomed to our 8-person dorm by a nauseating, bedpost-shuttering, snorefest already in progress.

The morning of the 14th, we celebrated our 6th full day in Europe by cooking a bountiful breakfast of eggs, toast, and jam. Ohhh, the jam. Like a hundred strawberries coating each individual taste bud. This day, Dingle was rainy and we arrived in the town’s center soaking wet to meet up with a group of roughly 10 nerds for a 2.5 hour archaeology tour.

With the son of a retired Dingle sheriff as our guide, we went all over the Dingle peninsula learning about the first inhabitants of Ireland, from how they used to claim land ownership to their underground escape routes in case of an attack from sea. Lauren and I sat shotgun, so we got to ask our guide a lot of extra questions.

We learned that a scientist was able to take DNA samples form the 2 most predominant surnames on the island and trace nearly 60% of the group of thousands back to one single male ancestor that our guide referred to as “the stud”. It turns out his name happened to be Sean O’Greenbyrg. We also discovered that the wild blackberries we had seen along our route from the hostel were safe to enjoy, and later gorged ourselves with the delicious berries (I gorged, Lauren picked gracefully.)

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 16th, 2007 at 7:11 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.