Good evening from Killarney, Ireland...

What a day!

We ate breakfast at the hotel...pancakes, yogurt, fruit, tea, and OJ.
...and bacon.  Bacon is pan fried ham, not like American bacon.  I like it;  Ron does not.

So we left The Granville Hotel in Waterford...just as two tour buses pulled in.

Our first stop toward Killarney was Dungarven, unplanned but we stopped because we could.  We weren't on the tour bus.  It is a quaint little town on the coast with a castle dating back to the 12th century.  We parked the car and decided we are a magnet for little old lonely men.  One stopped Ron as soon as he parked the car and asked him about it...said he was considering a car and has looked at this one.  They talked for a while about the car while I walked across the street and took pictures.  Surprised?

We left him and walked a block or two to the castle...and lo and behold,  another little old lonely man with a shihtzu stopped to talk to me...and I talked to the man about dogs and the castle.  The castle is a short stubby small castle with several round towers on the corners.  Well kept...

I was so thirsty by then, so we stopped in a pub for a drink.  I had a fizzy orange kind of like an Orangina which I fell love with on a train through France years ago.  Half OJ and half carbonated water....very refreshing..

Next stop was Kinsale because we could.  But riding through the tow of tiny narrow one lane street that doubled as a two way street, Ron panicked and freaked out.  We found a parking lot just outside the main shopping area and walked around...to a church...with an old cemetery of moss covered vaults, old old tombstones...and we learned that people a long time ago in the 12th century like the Norsemen sharpened their swords on the stone frames of the doors...deep grooves were cut in the right side stones, but not as many were on the left...which means there have always been more right handed people than left.

Then we found Fishy Fishy Cafe recommended by Rick Steves...and had fish and chips...we might be done with fish and chips.

Then the scary part started...we rode on the scariest roads I have ever been on...roads  that were basically a lane and a half, so,w with no markings, but the s arises thing was there were no shoulders and the 15-20 foot hedges grew right up to the road and sometimes on it.  Ron ran me into them on the left several times...and OK, I screamed.  Ancient stone rock walls also came up to the edge of the road with no shoulders...bushes bend...rock walls don't.  I might have screamed more.

After a long way, we finally came to what we thought was a freeway....nope, a two lane road, but this time with lines and a shoulder about a foot wide and lines on the edges of the road as well as in the middle, something we didn't always have on the other roads during the day.

So when we checked in tonight at the Brehon in Killarney, the desk asked Ron how his day was and he said, Scary!

So good night...We are doing easy things tomorrow and The Ring of Kerry is Saturday...stay tuned.

I miss my little baby girl.

Good whatever, you are 5, 6 , or 8 hours ahead of me,

Ron and I made it to Waterford in one piece...raining...

But I need to digress to the SFO airport.  We were TSA pre check going through domestic security...but were not once we had to get our luggage and go to international when Delta changed our plane to aerLingus...and they said that airline didn't accept our TSA pre check.

So through the stand up/see me names scanner I went...and then she stopped me...said something showed up...and I looked at the picture...beautiful!  HA

I immediately knew what it was even though it had never shown up before...my chemo port.  She seemed embarrassed, but it didn't bother me.  Every single day I count my lucky stars.

WEDNESDAY

1.  Do not trust Google directions.

When we rented the car at the Dublin Airport, me declined the insurance...but after emailing our agent and experiencing Ron's driving, we decided to buy it.

We  found a Hertz at the Waterford Airport...tiny little airport.  Ron googled the directions and off we went...and apparently got lost.  We wandered up in the hills and found a nice old gentleman with a friendly dog.  He tried to tell us in a million words how to get there, but finally gave us a map.

A few minutes later we were fully insured....expensive but gives us peace of mind.  State Farm would not have covered it...

2.  Waterford Crystal tour...fascinating.  So many steps to produce one piece of crystal.  We bought Kristen a Christmas present and chose some wine glasses for us.  We will up purchase them from Macy's when we return...

3.  Medieval Museum...ummm, perhaps not worth the admission price of €10 for seniors.  There is not enough there...I should have listened to Rick Steves.

4.  Reginald's Tower...free today which made up for the price of the museum.  It is a tower dating back to the 10th century with steep stone stairs spiraling up three floors.

5.  Dinner at McLeary's...OMG perhaps the best steak I have had for years...And I am not a big steak eater.  What was strange was the manager who came over to ask where n America we lived...as if he could tell we were Americans!  HAHA  there is no disguise for an American on Europe!

Anyway, we told him we were from San Francisco, and he said, Nope, Georgia.

We were astonished...but his brother had lived in Marietta, GA for 24 years...and recognized the accent that apparently neither of us has lost.

So we walked the 4 blocks to and from the restaurant...and all around everywhere today...and my feet are tired.  Ron has already konked out.