Killarney, again

From Liverpool, I flew back into Cork. The traffic was so bad that the bus driver let us off in the middle of the road so that we could walk to wherever we were going, as it was going to take longer to actually drive there. I wandered around a bit, looking for a decent tshirt before my bus left in an hour, but couldn't find the tourist info center that had the one I wanted. So instead, I grabbed dinner – sandwich and crisps from a convenience store (do they call them something else?) – and made my way back to the bus station.

There were so many people that wanted on my bus that they called up two more buses and made them direct trips to different cities. One to Tralee, one to Killarney, and one to somewhere else that was just before Killarney. See, it's always so easy to get out west and then once you're there THERE'S NO GETTING BACK! Seriously, a hundred buses arrive on the west coast every day and maybe three leave. In any case, this meant that I actually got to Killarney while it was still light out. The town seemed much the same as it had before, save the addition of massive decorations for the Gaelic football final that was scheduled a few days from then. I even remembered how to get to the hostel, and the clerk actually remembered me from two years ago! I was too flattered at the time to have been creeped out by that.

It had been one loooong day of traveling (see the train ride through Manchester, etc. that was all on this same day), and the Timbers would be playing at approximately two a.m., and since there was WiFi I planned on watching them. So, it wasn't much of a surprise then that I slept through the meeting time the next day for the tours of the Dingle peninsula which I kinda wanted to go on, since I didn't have a car and that seemed to be the only way to get over there. Instead, I grabbed a German girl that was moping around in my room looking lonely and we walked around the Killarney National Park and I took a zillion pictures.

Once again, though, I booked too many nights in Killarney, because after the park, there really just wasn't anything to do. There are more Americans in Killarney than any other group of people, especially the Irish, so between the tourist attitude and the local attitude towards tourists, the atmosphere of the town isn't all that great in the evening. I hurredly booked a room in Tralee for the following night so that I could get to Doolin, where there was hiking, as early as possible.

I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to catch up on soccer scores (Sky Sports is fucking evil and stupid. More on that later, I think.), and I called home for the first time to let my parents know that I was alive and well, if a little bored. I left fairly early the next day, hoping to get some breakfast at the wonderful place next to the hostel, but as it was Sunday there wasn't a thing open or a soul about. At the bus station, an elderly couple was fuming mad that the bus to Dingle had been canceled because of 'The Football.' I loved how no one called it just 'football' but always had to add that article 'THE Football,' which to me made it into a proper noun. This applied, I think, to both soccer-football and Gaelic football, although in this case they were talking about the Gaelic version, in which Kerry, the county we were in, was to be playing the final against their rivals and neighbors, Cork. Anyway, The Football was kind of a big deal, I guess, what with bus drivers refusing to run their routes during the match, and the decorations everywhere (houses, businesses, cars, lawns, children).

From the park: