Oh, Ireland!

Ireland has been on our list to visit for a long while. It seemed like one of the easiest trips to plan-people there speak English and prices are very affordable. I mean, to fly roundtrip from London Stansted, it cost each one of us around $85. That’s a bargain! That is the reason why we opted to fly and rent a car rather than drive ourselves to Holyhead, Wales and take a ferry to Dublin. Besides, our goal was not to see Dublin, but to see real Irish countryside. So we flew into Cork, a city in the southwest of Ireland, got our car (with Hertz…that put a 5000 euro hold on our credit card because of insurance…crazy car rental rules here) and drove two hours north to Dingle peninsula where we were staying.
I said that in a way that would make you think it was a breeze. Well…flying London-Cork was indeed easy, only an hour and ten minutes. But driving on the tiny Irish roads—not so much fun. And we are used to driving on the “wrong” side of the road too! There is almost no shoulder anywhere besides big motorways, trucks or tractors usually need to be passed and that’s not very much fun. I am so glad we did not bring our big US minivan, actually. It would have been TIGHT!
Nevertheless, after a quick stop for lunch at Killarney, we arrived to our beautiful house with a magical view. Four bedrooms, three bathrooms, with everything you need inside. It was one of our favorite houses in our European traveling.

  If you are interested, here its info.

 

And this is the view I am talking about-3 min drive from the beach.

Of course, we dropped off our suitcases, picked our beds, and ran to the beach.

Here is a jumpy picture of me for you, since I wasn’t in the one above.

It was a bit windy and chilly, but nothing unbearable.

Do you see the kids wearing wellies (rubber boots)? We were debating for a little if we should bring them since Ryanair is a budget airline, so each of us only had 20 lbs of luggage space. So we decided most of us should wear our boots on the plane since it’s a short ride anyway, but that we must bring wellies. And we were right! We all were glad to have dry feet (well, most of the time) and be able to play in the sea.

Now Mark loves this headband from Daiso (our Japanese dollar store). That’s his “I love Ireland” face, I am sure.

Katya was just taking pictures of Alex for ten minutes straight. I had to delete at least a hundred and fifty of them. Basically most of them of Alex dancing.

And then Mark was posing for her. I think he copies her more than she realizes.

The weather was kind of strange-windy and sunny and cloudy-all at the same time.  We saw a rainbow twice that day.

Oh, there, in the background, one of those houses is ours.

Our kids seem to be drawn to any sort of rushing water. This is water coming down from the hills into the sea. I was questioning the cleanliness of it since it was coming from who knows where. Otherwise, we’d let them play there all day.

After about an hour, we got home, changed our shoes and drove to the nearby village of Castlegregory to find some seafood. This is the view from across the street where we ate. It was beautiful! But the food was just all right.

We were excited as our Irish adventures were just beginning.

Lyana.