Ah! Back in Ireland. I was so psyched I forgot to be afraid to fly. We
picked up our car at the airport (left side! left side!) and drove south
to Kilkenny, a picturesque – and supposedly sleepy – medieval
town.
It took us two hours to get there and two hours to find a room for the night. Now that doesn’t sound so bad, right, but the situation was rather desperate. After stopping at 15 or so hotels and B&Bs only to be told, Sorry, no room in the inn, I started having biblical visions of Mary and Joseph bunking down in a stable (of which there were plenty, just out of town). Finally, one hotel heard that another across town had a cancellation and we had a room. It was 9:00pm. By 9:30pm we were ready to forage for food and wandered outside to find that every restaurant had already closed for the night. Thank god Guinness is filling. Well, luckily, the kind folks at Paris, Texas (no kidding) re-opened their kitchen when they saw the look of desperation on my face. A shot of Powers, a pint of Guinness and a plate of chicken fajitas later and I was again ready to be happy – poor Cheong.
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OK, to elaborate, there was a PGA tour featuring Tiger Woods coming into town so its true that the hotels were full and most B&B's lock their doors early, but really, was it necessary for Chris to freak out? The scene in the car as we drove around Kilkenny was not pleasant. OH MY GOD! EVERY HOTEL IS FULL! WE ARE SCREWED! WE ARE GOING TO HAVE TO SLEEP IN THE CAR! WE ARE GOING TO STARVE! No, don't worry, we'll find a room. There's always a room. I'M SERIOUS! WE ARE SCREWED! EVEN THE HOSTELS ARE FULL! Calm down. Then fine, we'll sleep in the car and skipping one meal is hardly starving. Here have a malt ball. I REFUSE TO SLEEP IN THE CAR! AND I DO NOT WANT A MALT BALL! In the end, we stayed in a lovely (albeit, expensive hotel). Kilkenny is lovely by day, but at night, the streets fill with drunken kids looking for a rave. Anyhow, the architecture is indeed beautiful. To see for yourself, check out our Kilkenny Gallery.