As much as I wanted to do Ring of Kerry and Dingle, I decided to skip them and just move on.  So I rose bright and early in Killarney and got on a bus towards Cahir.

After a couple hours on the bus, I arrived at Cahir Castle.  It was, of course, raining.  The guy at the desk let me stow my bag so at least I didn’t have to carry that around, and then I walked around the castle.

After visiting the castle, I had about an hour to burn so I went to the The Lazy Bean Cafe for lunch.  I have a oddly sweet ciabatta veggie sandwich melt thing, which was delicious.  So if you’re ever in the Cahir area, go to this place.

And then I had to wait in the rain for a few minutes.  So I park myself under a canopy, just like two nearby Irishman did.  And then they insisted on talking to me.  I couldn’t hear them, so I had to walk over and talk to them, me standing in the rain, them standing under a stoop, like that was a completely normal thing to do.  One of them was this really old guy with a strangely thin mustache, like a 14-year-old boy or an older Turkish woman.

Next stop was the Rock of Cashel.  Since my bus ticket was “too confusing” for the bus driver, he just let me ride on to Cashel for free (yay).  He probably felt bad because I looked like a drowned rat who hadn’t showered in a day or two.

Our tour guide was very easily distracted.  Loud birds threw her off, but mostly it was these two kids.  I don’t spend a ton of time around small children, but I can tell you they really couldn’t care less about rain.  It’s a reason to run around and jump in puddles, run through puddles chasing each other, screeching the entire time.  They were having a great time, but our tour guide wasn’t.  She was trying to explain this thing.

Her dad was a great sport though.  Towards the end of the tour, it’s still raining of course, and all this little girl wants to do is play tag (I’m guessing she’s like 4 and her brother is like 2).  He taps her, says “you’re on!”, and runs away.  That was probably the most entertaining part of the tour, watching her chase him.

This time there was a pub right next to the bus stop and I had about an hour until taking the bus to Kilkelley.  I grabbed a pint of Guinness and watched the first half of the Manchester City vs. Chelsea futbol match.

I arrived in Kilkenny at nearly 10pm without a reservation anywhere.  The WiFi in the bus wasn’t working, so I found myself once again making things up as I went along.  First couple places I went were booked, and I came to a third that was booked, but he brought me in to give me directions.  Just as he started doing that, someone called and cancelled so I was in.  Lucky timing.

Although, it was a party hostel.  All young people, and I could tell during my “tour” walking around the city that it was quite the party town.  So I did what any 27-year-old would do, went to The Dylan Whiskey Bar for a Green Spot and then went back to the hostel to bed.

The guy sleeping above me did not have such a great night.  I’m not sure what time everybody came back, but he was moaning and carrying on all night, jumped off and face-planted once, and I pondered the possible repercussions for us if someone died in our room.  The other guys were more upset, but truth be told I kind of operate on a different time zone than college kids on vacation, so their actual sleeping only overlaps mine for 2-3 hours, and my loss of sleep was more of an inconvenience than something that ruins my next day (I’ve usually already slept 5-6 hours when they get back at 4am).  But good news, he didn’t die, so everything’s cool.