{"id":28371,"date":"2014-10-13T16:08:22","date_gmt":"2014-10-13T21:08:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/?page_id=28371"},"modified":"2014-10-14T16:08:05","modified_gmt":"2014-10-14T21:08:05","slug":"killarney-day-1","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/?page_id=28371","title":{"rendered":"Killarney Day 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Dingle Day 2<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Today started with another plan B. Originally when we woke up, we were going to leave as late as possible this morning and then head into Killarney late enough to check into our hotel. After that, we were going to spend the day just hiking around Killarney. Instead, once we got packed we decided instead to drive the Ring of Kerry today. Get all the driving out of the way today so that we can take it easy and hike around Killarney tomorrow.\u00a0 Our travel energy is waning.<\/p>\n

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\nOn the way out of Dingle, there’s this super tiny road that leads out to a castle ruin and Fungie the dolphin viewing point.<\/p>\n

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\nNo Fungie was spotted today. He was too busy being called a loser by other dolphins.<\/p>\n

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\nBut we did see the castle though.<\/p>\n

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\nThat’s the good thing about castles, they stay put, unlike dolphins.<\/p>\n

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\nAnother beautiful day, and another long day of driving.<\/p>\n

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\nI think Dingle is the most beautiful part of Ireland that we’ve visited so far. Thanks for the recommendation KH!<\/p>\n

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\nInch Beach.<\/p>\n

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\nAnd then we hit some fog.<\/p>\n

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\nAnd it gets even heavier…maybe today wouldn’t be the best day to drive through Ring of Kerry.<\/p>\n

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\nWell, the fog lifted quickly. Hopefully it’ll stay like this.<\/p>\n

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\nIn about an hour, we’ve reached Killarney. Our hotel is located here, but it’s a bit before noon and too early to check in. We’ll just stock up at the convenience store for some quick lunch and then head straight to the Ring of Kerry.<\/p>\n

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\nPassing through Killarney National Park.<\/p>\n

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\nLooks like a lovely spot for a picnic lunch. To our surprise, we were the only ones out here.<\/p>\n

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\nThis is awesome, moss at my feet!<\/p>\n

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\nThen of course, chicken wings as appetizer before my chicken sandwich.<\/p>\n

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\nNice lunch, and even nicer view.<\/p>\n

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\nTime to get going, much more driving left still.<\/p>\n

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\nEvery time I get in a car in Ireland, my stress level goes up. The roads are just all so narrow here.<\/p>\n

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\nRandom ruin along the road.<\/p>\n

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\nEEEeeeeekk!!<\/p>\n

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\nEven in beautiful places, they do road constructions. Sigh.<\/p>\n

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\nEeeeekkk!!! Look at how far that bus drives over the center lane. All the buses drive counter clockwise around the Ring of Kerry because in many places, two buses cannot pass each other due to the roads being so narrow.<\/p>\n

Despite the occasional bus, the drive actually isn’t too crowded. Not sure if it’s because we showed up in the afternoon or if it’s because it’s the shoulder season. We were expected to be crawling about stuck behind a lot of slow cars, but that was mostly not the case today.<\/p>\n

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\nPass!!<\/p>\n

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\nWe are getting really exhausted from this drive. The roads are bumpy, curving and narrow and I’ve been speeding through them because it’s so fun. It’s taking a toll on our bodies and we are starting to feel a lot of driving fatigue.<\/p>\n

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\nPast the halfway point now. The Southern drive of Ring of Kerry is much more scenic than the Northern part of the loop. We are both so tired at this point, all we want to do is just make it to our hotel and rest.<\/p>\n

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\nParts of Ring of Kerry are really beautiful, but we’ve seen so much beauty here in Ireland already that the Ring of Kerry is a little bit underwhelming. I still think Dingle is the most beautiful part of Ireland that we’ve visited thus far.<\/p>\n

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\nPass!!! At one point, I was the last car in a train of like 8 cars and NO ONE WOULD PASS! Eventually, I had to go for it and passed all the cars ahead in one go. Seriously people, pass when a car in front of you is driving at half of the speed limit!<\/p>\n

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\nFinally back in Killarney. So tired, seriously tired. We’ve been on the road for about 5 hours today, but I feel like I’ve been on the road for 10 hours. My brain feels so tired.<\/p>\n

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\nShit, took a wrong turn in Killarney, and it’s taking us to the city center instead of to our hotel.<\/p>\n

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\nThat’s ok, I can just take a right at the end of the street and that will put us back on the right road….EXCEPT NO RIGHT TURN!!!! Ugh, I hate the random one way streets here in Ireland cities.<\/p>\n

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\nDiesel fuel is cheaper than gas here in Ireland. Speaking of which, the car that I am in is Diesel, which is pretty cool. Not only is diesel cheaper, it also gets better gas mileage.<\/p>\n

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\nWe had to make a giant circle around Killarney after making that wrong turn, so here’s a photo of that church again. This time, non-blurry.<\/p>\n

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\nFinally made it to our hotel after a very long exhausting day. So tired. Those stains on my shirt, yeah those are from the the lilies in RL’s birthday bouquet. The pollen got everywhere when I tried to put the flowers in the back seat. The flowers are still going strong, by the way!<\/p>\n

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\nThis is what $78 a night gets you 3 minutes drive from center of town in Killarney. Pretty awesome. The best part, Wifi is super fast here. It’s so nice to have fast internet!!!<\/p>\n

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\nGiant room, small bathroom. Seriously, I’d like to have the restroom be bigger. Also, they must be really confident in their toilet mechanism as everything is behind permanent tiles and not serviceable….speaking of Irish toilet…they have a different flush mechanism than American toilet. I lifted the lid at the hotel in Galway to check it out. It doesn’t have a flap to trap the water in the tank, but instead has this kind of complicated plumbing so that when you push the lever, it elevates water in this chamber and it creates a siphon effect that pulls all the water out. I guess it’s better in that it won’t leak because it doesn’t have a rubber flap…that’s the best I can explain it anyhow without drawing it out.<\/p>\n

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\nView outside of our window. Killarney National Park is right across the street.<\/p>\n

The UK style power sockets in this hotel does not like our plug adapters. The sockets here have too much spring effect and keep overpowering the prongs on my adapter so I had to borrow one from the hotel desk. However, the charger for my laptop had a hard time staying put inside the hotel’s plug adapter.<\/p>\n

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\nNo problem, 3 adapters later, I’ve got power!!! One to power, and two to hold the charger in place.<\/p>\n

After unpacking a little, I put my head down on the bed and immediately fell into deep sleep for 2 hours. Woke up still mentally exhausted, but it’s time to eat.<\/p>\n

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\nToo lazy to get in the car to go anywhere, so the hotel bar restaurant will do.<\/p>\n

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\nRL orders a hot toddy. I’ve seen them putting cloves on a lemon slice in hot toddies in other bars in Ireland as well.<\/p>\n

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\nPotato skin.<\/p>\n

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\nThe last beef lasagna they had left! Pretty good dinner actually, and we didn’t have to walk anywhere.<\/p>\n

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\nPhoto of hotel. We wanted some snacks so we left our hotel for a short walk to the nearest convenience store to stock up.<\/p>\n

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\nOHHHH!!! These are like Ho Hos, but Irish!! Must try!!<\/p>\n

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\nIce cream for dinner dessert!<\/p>\n

So tired. Spent the night feeling tired and bored, but too mentally exhausted to want to do anything. I finally figured out the one thing that would be the best right now, deep tissue massage for my tired body!!! Yes, that sounds awesome…but RL said no…I guess I’ll just finish this blog then…<\/p>\n

To be continued at Killarney Day 2<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Dingle Day 2. Today started with another plan B. Originally when we woke up, we were going to leave as late as possible this morning and then head into Killarney late enough to check into our hotel. After … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":28029,"menu_order":5,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-28371","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/28371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28371"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/28371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28456,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/28371\/revisions\/28456"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/28029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}