Day 6: A Sleepy Sunday Night in Dingle

After leaving Waterville, we continued along the Ring of Kerry. The scenery was amazing the entire time. After each narrow and tree lined curve, suddenly the scenery opened before our eyes and we could see ocean and the mountains. We stopped a number of times to take pictures and absorb it all. And, suddenly, it began to rain just before dusk set in.

Driving in the rain was more challenging. The paint on the roads nearly disappeared, but the other drivers did not slow down. The Irish drivers continued to speed around us and whip around the corners without the slightest change in their driving. My driving, however, changed significantly as I struggled to see the lines on the road and not react too quickly to the stone walls that suddenly appeared 6 inches from our lane. Nonetheless, we continued on our journey towards Dingle.

When we arrived in Dingle, night was upon us. Being a rainy Sunday night, there were very few people walking around the streets. However, parking was still a priority because there were still very few open spots.

As we pulled down a one-way alley for the second time, we parked in a tight spot and began our search for a place to stay the night. We walked towards the harbor and down the main street. At first it seemed that only the SuperValu grocery store was open, but later there were a few other pubs and clothing boutiques about t0 close as we walked by.

Quite a ways down the street, Kristy spotted an open wooden gate at Murphy's B & B and a posted sign "Vacancies." We rang the bell and walked into the door. There were stairs just inside the building and we walked began walking up them. Immediately, we were greeted by the owner of the B & B. He struck up a conversation with us as he showed us the rooms that were available for the night. He was a very nice man and told us where we could park and to return with our bags if we wanted a room. We thanked him and began walking back to the car.

On our way, we decided that it was the perfect place to stay the night. However, for dinner, there were very few options. So, across the alley from our parking spot was a Chinese Take-Away place. We were curious, entered and read the menu. We decided on our food and walked up the stairs to the counter. It must have been the place to be on Sunday nights because there were many bags lined up along the bar and many people getting their food. We ordered and headed towards SuperValu, a block away, to wait.

After 20-minutes in SuperValu, we walked back to the Chinese place and picked up our meals. We moved the car to a lot next to the B & B and brought our luggage into the building. As we entered, the owner came down the stairs and seemed a little surprised to see us after so much time. He asked if he could help us with our luggage as he took the smaller suitcase that Kristy was carrying and made a quick joke about the huge suitcase that I was lugging up the stairs.

We put our luggage in the room and went into the lounge that was available for all of the guests. We set our Chinese food down and separated it. We were intrigued by the differences between Irish-Chinese food and American-Chinese food. The Irish food was more soupy and was not deep-fried like the American counterparts. Also, to Kristy's dismay, there were no fortune cookies to end our meal.

As we were eating, we encountered another electronics problem- the TV did not work. Well, it worked, but Kristy was unable to get it to turn on. We worked on it for a few minutes, got it on, but then could not figure out how to change to channel. Anyway, their version of American Idol was on, so we watched that as we ate our Irish-Chinese food. Stepping back for a moment, it was quite a cross-cultural experience.

After dinner, we went to our room and had a very quiet Sunday evening as we planned our next day and wrote in our travel log, which we are recapping here. We watched an Irish documentary about the boldest and most expensive art heist in Irish history and how the perpetrator lived in the public light, but avoided capture for many years. It was interesting, but made us pretty tired as we unwound from the stressful driving in the rain.