My Piece of Home: Part Four

Katie and I just made it back to Dublin a few hours ago. Alive! The car is gone and we are now on foot. We only had one missing mirror and a flat tire...not too bad for 8 days around Ireland with a rental! And because of the extra insurance we had the tire payment given back to us. Only a little stress as a payment, I suppose. Anyways, I'll back up to where I left off on my last post.

After we left the internet cafe that night, we went back to our hostel. That place was dirty! It was the only hostel that made me feel dirtier after taking a shower... We stayed in a room with four boys! Two were French, one was German, and one was Canadian. We didn't talk to any one except for the one from Canada. He was really cool. He is a biology teacher and he took three weeks before school started again to come over here and bike all over Ireland. He was the silver lining of the black cloud that was the Kenmare Lodge Hostel. (Ugh...) Anyways, we left Kenmare the next day and headed to Kinsale. It is a cute little coastal down that is south of Cork. (I'd been to Cork before and I knew it was industrial and boring. No offense to anyone!) So we stopped into our hostel and met the front desk guy, Rory. Buckle your seat belts for the train wreck that is about to happen... Rory is in early thirties and was very nice. He joked around with us, and we found his awkwardness endearing. He showed us our room and even upgraded us to a private room for free. (It wasn't just because we're cute. He had a friend who needed the room! lol) They had a pool table in the house and he told us that we should play a game later, if we were up for it. We decided to get a bite to eat first and see what Kinsale had to offer. We walked around the quiet streets and settled into The Milk Market Cafe. Because we weren't too hungry, we shared a small pizza. (Chicken, pesto and sun-dried tomatoes....mmmm...) It started to rain, and the streets turned from quiet to dead. So we decided to go back and chat with our friendly hostel worker. He was just heading out to dinner himself, so we asked if we could use the internet at the hostel. He offered his own laptop, which was very kind of him. When he came back we played a game of pool with him. His friends were there....an interesting group. When we walked in, there was a girl giving a "yoga massage" to a guy and another girl in the corner hanging out. The one that did the massage stopped to play some kind of instrument... It looked like a rain stick but you blow through the top and it makes a dull horn noise. It was quite the show. Then we met Yoshi from Japan. He was so awesome! He is just traveling around Ireland alone before heading back to Japan for school. Anyways, Rory told us we should have a friendly bet. If we won he would have to do something, but if he won, we wouldn't lose anything. Sounds like a good deal huh? Well, the game went on, and Katie and I did surprisingly well. It was all down to the final 8 ball to see who would win. He finally sunk it in and we were disappointed to lose. But he told us he would still do what he was planning if we were to win. He told us to wait a few minutes and meet up with him. When we found him he was wearing a French maid costume! I almost flipped out and tried so hard not to die laughing. It was sort of hilarious and freaky at the same time! Luckily he had a fondness for Katie and not me...There are pictures, so don't worry! It was then that we knew that his awkwardness was no longer endearing and borderline "Norman Bates -ish". But anyways, it made for a good story and something that we will remember for years to come! Later that night I was talking to him and he mentioned his love for Barry Manilow. Because of my aunt Kris, I too am a Fanilow. So we bonded over this and it was really dorky and funny. The next morning before we checked out, he came up to me and told me that he's going to see him in Vegas next winter and that he'd email me with details if I wanted to go with him. He also handed me his very own copy of the Ultimate Manilow DVD. I tried to politely refuse the kind gesture but it was not successful. So now I have a token to remember our crazy "friend" Rory from Kinsale... Oh man...

After we left Kinsale, and tried to wipe out the image of our French maid, we continued our journey and our first stop to Cobh. (Pronounced "cove".) Cobh is a VERY cool place with a LOT of history. Go look it up. Do it, I say!! The highlights are as follows: It was the place where several famous ships took their last stop at before heading to America, including the Lusitania and the TITANIC, and it was the port where more than half of the Irish who fled to America during the Famine took off, including the famous Annie Moore who was the first Irish person to be processed through immigration at Ellis Island. This place was very cool to see. I'm not even the least bit Irish, and I still found it fascinating! There wasn't too much of a tribute to Titanic there, surprisingly. How strange it was to be standing where the passengers stood, having no idea what was ahead. After a few hours there, we moved on our way to Kilkenny. We got to our hostel and walked around the little town for a bit. We wanted to go in the castle but it was closed. So we had some dinner and then walked to The Black Abbey, a monastery established in the 1200s by Dominicans. It was taken over by the government, but restored later when there was peace for the religious in Ireland. We wanted to go inside desperately because there was a statue of the Trinity that was found hidden in the walls! They must have found it during the restoration process. I'll have to look that up.... We stopped into a pub for a pint of Bulmers (a famous hard cider here, that Katie has fallen in love with and won't find in the states...) before heading back to our hostel. We made an early night of it because we knew we would have to wake up early.

We got up at around seven this morning and got ready to head back to Dublin. We wanted plenty of time to stop in Kildare before getting to the rental place at noon. We made it all the way to St. Brigid's Cathedral and found that it was closed! It was very sad because we went there just to see it. We left with a few pictures of the outside. St. Brigid is Katie's confirmation saint. We got to see her well over in County Clare, so at least we were able to see something special left by the patroness of Ireland. We got our car back to the rental (Remember...don't go to Murray's car rental. They are all mean!) and returned the car without any problems! It was amazing! Even though they were a little rude, we got everything taken care of.

Now we are at our hostel in Dublin and taking advantage of the free internet. Our buddy Joe O'Toole from Westport decided to meet up with us for Katie's last night. We are so excited to see him again! He was so much fun and he really helped us out. I want to show Katie a good time on her last night, so wish me luck! It's Friday night in Dublin...that shouldn't be too hard!

So there you all have it...the wonderful tales of Katie and Claire's Trip Around Ireland. I'm sure I'll have a little more to say about tonight and tomorrow morning, but all in due time. I hope all is well in Oregon. To be honest, I'm a little jealous that Katie is going home to see you all! But I am happy to be here and excited for what the rest of this year will bring.

Love,
Claire

PS I just got a baby laptop (Little Jerry Seinfeld is his name) and now I will have Skype and a webcam to chat with people. So if you are interested in talking to me and seeing me (and I hope you are!) Then get a free Skype account and search for my name. I'm pretty sure my name on there is "clairevandecoevering" but I'll have to double check. But serching for my full name should do the trick. :)