Moving your mental feet in complex dances and jigs

-Just Jack. (listened to muchly while on the road)

Did you know...
Dracula means "Bad Blood" ... ah the useful facts I've learnt during my stay in Ireland!
I have also learnt some great tunes, am improving my ukulele skills and listening to lots and lots of music.
I will keep this blog short(ish) as I'm too tired to write really, but feel like an update is fair...

So here's something I wrote during my stay in Dingle, though before I start... you might find it helps to know that the three sisters are three cliffs that look exactly the same, and happened to be the view I was lucky enough to have at the B&B, which was called 'The old Pier'...

The three sisters in the sun
As the mist fades away,
the wind is steady and the ocean's rough
the blue shining,
with on the clouds a silver lining.
The fields are green as it so often rains,
though the sheep do not complain.
A waterfall flows into the deep blue
as the gulls& fishermen pick their fish.
The swans bathe near the beach,
where the horses gallop too;
as the tide goes out more rocks appear,
the waves break softly as I stand and look at this view from 'the old pier'.

and here's part of a lyric I once wrote, Dingle reminded me of it...
"Looking out at open fields, setting sun touching ocean blue, this hill I'm on was hard to climb, and I've been working overtime."
... maybe not the working overtime bit, but yes. it was written about Australia at the time, but it makes sense here.

Dingle is a peninsula, for those of you who don't know where the hell this Dingle place is. It is also the name of the main town of this peninsula. On this peninsula lies the second highest mountain of Ireland (Mt. Brendan). We didn't climb the mountain, as it had its head in the clouds.. and didn't really seem worth all the bogginess, when you don't even have a clear view.
So we drove up to Brendan point instead, and walked for about four hours... with my nikes on. through the bog. Oh what fun I had with my wet feet! I actually made it quite a way with dry feet, until the wind came and caught me off guard, lost balance and put my foot in a deep boggy substance.
We had a very luxury lunch during our walk: salmon sandwiches. We took our remaining breakfast (which was smoked salmon and scrambled eggs yummmm!)
We even had camomile tea with honey on our walk, pretty good, although I missed the taste of Whiskey in the hot drink.
Anyhoo. The footpath- very wet. Then we almost got stuck, but mum had her walking-stick with her and could test how deep the stream was that covered the footpath (over 1m!), she could also test where the land was hard enough to stand on, on the other side. So I jumped and pulled her across... then we continued on our adventure.
Almost at the top, the wind blew us and some Americans away.. yey! Actually, it wasn't that much fun. It was quite sad. A kid fell. I was happy that we'd done the hard part, and they still had to conquer it.
Yes, the way back down was a lot easier than the way up. Wow.
Good walk though... had our laughs, saw some sheep, breathtaking views...
I also went horseriding, at "Sea View Equestrian". The owner is from Guernsey, has studied in Buxton and has ridden at Buxton riding school (the world is such a small place) She's now teaching in centered riding, and if you ever go to Dingle and want to ride: this is the place. All the horses are ridden bitless and it's all very relaxed and lots of fun! She goes out in small groups, which is nice and well... I can really advise you to go riding there. haha.

just a little note in between things: There is a club in the hotel where I'm staying. Our room is situated next to it. I can now hear "Call me maybe" blasting out of the speakers, before that it was "Survivor" by Destiny's Child. This will go on until 4 a.m. ... I might die.

We left Dingle with lots of fish in our bellies, wind in our hair and a relaxing, rainy, sunny and fun time. We then drove to Cashel, where we had to definitely see the "Bru Boru" ... WTH?! you may ask... it is one of the most amazing Irish music performances I have ever seen. It had Irish Hard Shoe dancing, a bit of a broomdance, amazing musicians giving the audience so much...
I even did a little dance after the show with one of the dancers. Life is good.
One night in Cashel, the woman at the B&B said to me: Don't you hurry with getting married! You want to be independent first, so you NEVER have to depend on a man. You want to learn now, and not later when you have no choice.
Sure. There goes my dream of finding that rich Mr. Darcy with his estate so I can have a horse farm, read, ride and play music all day. haha. I told her not to worry, I don't think I'll get married any time soon.

So, then we drove up to Dublin. Almost made it to the Budget Rent A Car in one go. Mum's driving skills slowly improved along the way...
Took a taxi from there to the hotel .. The taxi drivers' license had expired, but he got us to the hotel and didn't charge too much, so that was OK.
We walked around town, did some windowshopping and some actual shopping. Had some lunch, walked around the Trinity College... WOW! Why can't the VU be a building like that? It's beautiful. Wouldn't mind studying there...
Then we had dinner at this amaaaazing Italian place. They had lovely lovely pizza with a really thin crust and nothing but tomato and mozzarella + a bit of basil and rucola on top, but not cooked with the pizza. Simply yum (I will not tell you about all the food I have been eating as it really is a lot...) as dessert I had a banoffee glory, Gelato with Banoffee chunks... and a real espresso. It was perfect.
The people next to us were funny though. I could tell they didn't know each other well, and that they felt uncomfortable, they were probably on their first date ... quite possibly through an internet dating site. It started off quite well, then the man kept showing the woman all these pictures of family members. That got the woman started on this whole travelblah thing, moved on to a story about courtrooms and then she didn't stop talking, and he only nodded and said "oh yes I know" ... fail.
Walked around a bit after dinner, had a drink along the way and enjoyed some songs... moved back to the hotel. And now I'm here, and there's this club and it's driving me crazy.

Plans for tomorrow:
visit leprechaun museum
visit Book of Kells
visit Oscar Wilde place
go to the Gate Theatre to see "A Woman of No Importance" by Oscar Wilde.

Will be back on Sunday
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