We just rolled into Galway, a beautiful college town and Ireland’s
third largest city. We are staying in the cutest little B&B, home
of our gregarious hostess Mary. Our little en-suite room (with bathroom)
features a window that overlooks her family’s garden and The River
Corrib. You can hear the waterfall from our room. We just came from an
excellent dinner at one of the many Chinese restaurants in town followed
by a nightcap at the hip and trendy Bazaar, a Moroccan themed bar. Already
I can tell that this town is diverse and interesting, but more on Galway
later, as my knowledge of the city increases.
The last few days have been a crazy blur. We’ve been driving like mad, hitting one city after the other. Kilkenny, as you already know, was much more beautiful by day then by night. It seems sacrilege to have all of these perfectly preserved medieval buildings be converted into discos. If I had to guess at our social and psychological age, I think Chris and I are closer to 40 years old. We like to have fun, but not at the expense of a good night’s sleep. I know several of our friends, dismayed as they are, can attest to this fact. Needless to say, Kilkenny just wasn’t for us.
Next came Cork. A few things surprised me about Cork: 1. It’s built on steep hills much like San Francisco. 2. The city center is an island between two channels of the River Lee. 3. Its very, very ugly. Chris kept warning me it was Dublin’s “ugly stepsister” but I just wouldn’t listen because I was so excited to be back in a large city. Its saving grace is that it offers some great dining options and is large enough to get everything you might need (except a decent looking coat for Chris. In fact, not counting the very expensive Brown Thomas chain, Ireland’s equivalent of Neiman Marcus, the stores all resemble the Fashion Bug or Strawberry).
We had a really nice meal at Isaacs, a casual, but reputedly excellent restaurant in the city center. Like most restaurants in Ireland, it’s hard to describe the type of cuisine because almost all menus are chaotically and unnervingly, mixed. I refrain from using the word “fusion” because dishes aren’t influenced by different cultures and then adapted. Rather it’s very common to walk into a restaurant that offers Mexican chicken fajitas, Indian lamb curry, traditional Irish stew, hummus, grilled steak and spring rolls all on the same menu – I’m talking even the upscale places. Normally, I would run from a place called "Rome to Mexico" or an establishment that claimed to excel at both tandoori chicken wings AND seafood clam chowder, but there is no sense of irony in their execution. The only deviation is that everything comes with chips. But for the most part, our meals here have been excellent. I say for the most part because shortly before we arrived in Killarney, I observed to Chris that the Irish do not refrigerate their eggs. He retorted in that tone he reserves for me when he thinks I’m being snobbish or hypercritical: “Geez, Cheong, a lot of countries don’t refrigerate their eggs.” Famous last words.
Killarney, home to the Killarney National Park, is a commercial town created to suck the Euro out of anyone desiring to see the Ring of Kerry. As Chris likes to put it, he didn’t do anything in Killarney except “wake up late, eat salmonella eggs and leave.”
By the time we arrived in Dingle, Chris was a nauseous, sweaty mess. Because I have a terrible cold, I had insisted on staying somewhere nice so Chris had pre-booked us at the posh Milltown B&B, a luxury guesthouse famous for having accommodated Robert Mitchum during the filming of Ryan’s Daughter in the 1970s. This is a fact of which the elderly innkeepers are very proud, plastering every wall of every room with Robert Mitchum photos, paintings, prints, etc. Anyhow, between Chris’s loud vomiting and my coughing all night, I thought for sure they would chase us out of the house with sticks and torches and then burn our bedding and scour the walls with bleach. We were too tired and embarrassed to join the other guests for breakfast and hid in the room for most of the morning. That afternoon, with Chris working overtime not to pass out, we drove Slea Head Drive, a 26km stretch of the most beautiful coastline I’ve ever seen! To the one side is rolling green farmland, low stone fences, grazing sheep, wild white stallions, and the occasional stream; on the other side you'll find steep, rocky cliffs spilling out into the Atlantic and secluded stretches of sandy beach. I know I’m not a nature person, but even Chris will attest to its grandeur. After that we slept for about 12 hours.
Sadly, because we were both a mess and a little tired of driving, we ended up having to skip the Ring of Kerry and the Cliffs of Moher. Speaking of driving, Chris managed to navigate the perils of left side driving, seldom marked roads, no street lamps, manual transmission and confusing roundabouts with no problem. However, he had a little difficulty parking as evidenced by the ding and scratch he left on the car when he backed into a huge fluorescent blue cement block. Well, at least no one was hurt.
The most interesting thing I observed in the last few days was how we are already a little changed by our “adventure”. This may come as a surprise, but I am actually more mellow than Chris; much more capable of taking situations and schedules in stride. On the other hand, Chris has become friendlier and more open, initiating conversations with strangers, and unfearful of asking for help. I’ve become more shy and careful about expressing my opinions, but I’m slowly starting to reciprocate the waves and hellos by passersby and growing less self-conscious about being Asian or American or a woman or just plain confused and ignorant. The best thing about all of this is the time we’ve been able to spend together just laughing and hanging out and being stupid and surprising each other in our choices.
After a day trip to the fishing hamlet, Kinsale, we loved it so much we returned the next day, spent a night at a B&B and then woke up and rented a flat. Our nine month lease begins September 24 and we are both excited and a little nervous about our foray into “small town living”. If it was a life change we were looking for, we got it with this picturesque small town (pop. 4,000 – not counting the cows and the sheep). The flat is tiny, but cozy and well situated. Just stroll down Main Street, make a left at the castle and go up the hill a bit. We’re across from the park. We’ll write more about Kinsale as we get settled. Oh, and lest you think we forgot about Cobh, Chris will be writing that update which he should have ready soon.
That’s all for now. Cheers.