Killarney Weekend

Well, I'm up at nearly 6am for various reasons, so I figured I might as well post about my weekend trip to Killarney with the interstudy posse.

The trip started out on Friday afternoon. I was planning on taking the 3:30 bus from the Cork station, which is a good 30-40 minute walk away from the apartment. Since I wanted to save my poor feet up for the dreaded 7-mile hike, I decided to take the number 8 bus to the city centre so at least I'd only have to walk one street over from St. Patrick's. However, fate did not want to be kind to me. I waited 40+ freaking minutes for that damn bus, and it never came. I was running out of time to get to the station, and I didn't want to pay for a taxi as 5 other groups of people had, so I started walking as fast as I could. Not 5 minutes down the road, the 8 passed me, not even close to full, picked up 2 passengers 100ft in front of me, then sped off while I lengthened my stride to reach the stop. After some rather strong language for me, I started walking again. Halfway to St. Patrick's another number 8 passed me, and by that point I was beyond pissed off, so I walked right by it, pretending my feet weren't killing me. I made it through the crowds at St. Patrick's and got to the bus station well in time... I'd made the minimum 30 minute walk in 25 minutes, and my feet were killing me, as well as my calves.

So, anyway, after that fiasco, the buses were all full, and finally sometime after 4:00 I made it on a bus with two other girls and we got to Killarney in time for dinner with the group. I actually ate lamb (the only other alternative was salmon, so yeah) and it was surprisingly good. The dessert, however... *drool* it was sticky toffee pudding, and I don't think I've ever had so subtle of a dessert taste so good. Anywho, the hostel was decent. Nothing like the hotel back home, but it was fairly clean. A group of 15 year old girls woke us up around 5am, and the girls in my room had some choice words to yell at them, but managed to restrain themselves. We then had the lovely 7-mile hike. It wasn't so much of a hike as a sometimes steep walk. No matter, my calves tightened up pretty badly by the time we stopped for lunch, as in making me walk funny so that I got heel blisters again. While we ate, I kept my feet up on the bench to get my weight off of them, which only helped nominally. Oh yeah, forgot to mention, I'd taken a double dose of ib profin that morning. After lunch, we took a boat ride through the three major lakes of the region, headed back to town, then went out for dinner. At dinner, the star of the show was the cheesy garlic bread...god, I'm drooling just thinking about how good it was.

But anywho, the walk was gorgeous, and I'll get pictures up asap. My camera batteries died on me during the first day, and apparently the batteries I bought at Tesco's there in Killarney weren't high enough of a voltage or something, because my camera wouldn't turn on. I didn't get any pictures from the friary, gardens, and falls the second day, which makes me really sad because it was so perfect. After dinner the second night, the girls all played drinking games, and one of them got hilariously smashed, and I had fun just watching them. Because my legs and feet were sore from the hike, I decided to stay in while they went out. I stretched for about an hour, and apparently I over did it, as when I woke up Sunday morning, I could barely move. Yeah, then we had to walk around the grounds of the Muckross house, friary, and falls, and by the time I was in view of the falls, I was ready to have someone shoot me in the head. Luckily we took cars back to Killarney.

From there, we ate some lunch and then three other girls and I took a fairly early bus back home. Of course, we had to walk back to the apartments from the bus stop about 10 minutes away, after my legs muscles had all cramped up on the bus ride home. Thus, when I made it up to my apartment, I camped out on the couch for several hours, then took as hot of a shower as I could get. Still, the entire back length of my legs are pure murder, and that is one of the reasons I am still awake. I went to bed around 2am, dozed for a bit, but mind wouldn't shut off and legs ache too freaking much.

And the major reason I can't fall asleep: It's amazing how much life, how much your perspective on life, can change in just a single hour. I'll leave it at that for now, but I have a lot of thinking to do. So, I'll leave this humongous post at that, and hope you guys enjoy the pictures when I get them up.