Just writing, in English language again, to tell you about a record I am accomplishing these months. I have had this idea in my mind for some time, and it is quite surprising...
It is the fact that I am going to set a record, I would say quite long, of time continuously wearing a coat. Yes, it is a strange fact, but coat has been with me every day I left my house since January, no exceptions! And that is going to be 4 months as I am writing now. Quite a long time... I am quite sure I have never wore a coat for so long in all the years I have lived in Spain. Simply, we don't have rain and cold for so long in Malaga, hehe.
And that´s even not taking into account the time I wore it before leaving to go to Spain on Christmas... if I did, the record could be much longer, although the warm time in Ireland are the months of April and May. After that, long rainy time will come with July and August, so the coat will come with me again every time, or at least that's what they say.
I must admit that Irish people don't wear it so much at all, they just wear clothes as if it was spring in Spain, but for the whole year and being here in Ireland. Girls wear skirts, open shoes, sandals, t-shirts... no coats, no jackets... nothing. And even if they wear it, they won't close it to the top, they prefer to leave it half opened. And I can tell you that when it is cold here I wear gloves, and everything I can to cover any single part of my body, so I could never do that.
Boys are not so tough, but you can also see them around wearing polo shirts even when I am wearing a coat, gloves and all the stuff I would carry to go skying... these are really tough guys, much more than the typical "Spanish macho".
A special mention has to be made of an american friend I have from New York who loves to wear sandals. He was wearing them for the whole rainy summer, then quit in winter, but I saw him again wearing them 24/7 from the past two weeks. And believe me, it was really cold to do that.
I would tell you the record is ending, but at the moment coat was with me all the time, because although we had a sunny day, rain could come at any time, or wind, or both, so I prefer to be warmer than normal wearing the coat with sun, than ending up "wetter than normal" once rain comes to visit us during the day.
But for the moment it makes a 4 months long coat wearing record, not bad. Although time is getting better, much better I would say these days, and you can see the sun more often than usual during these weeks and feel less cold. It looks like good weather is coming to Ireland, but on its own manner of course, given that, although you can have some sunny days, some not so sunny mornings, evenings, days or full weeks will be in the middle.
But anyway that's Ireland and changing weather can be good if looked from the right point of view. Although I imagine that's easier if you have lived all your life in a sunny country and don't expect to live here for a lifetime.
Our weather estimation for this week. It means we have to enjoy this sunny Monday.
I hope this post cheer you all up a little bit from this sunny Monday in Ireland.
Cheers!
This could very accurately be a summary of our last and fantastic trip to the middle of nowhere. We went to the very famous and touristic part of Ireland called the Ring of Kerry. It is a unique peninsula, in the west of Ireland, where you can find astounding landscapes and a really unique place, with a mix of sea, mountain, small towns, valleys, rivers and loneliness, a lot of it indeed. It is a special land, very inspiring and with a ton of places to explore, given the whole peninsula is a wonderful land full of gorgeous places.
I would say is one of those special places you have to see, and that leaves a mark in you. For me it is a place I will always remember as special, different, wonderfull and really, as I said before, unique. Not only for the place itself, but also for the people we went with and the fantastic time we had together.
We started early on Friday, at 7:30 in the morning, to start the driving early, and be in Killarney, 300km away, around midday. Roads here in Ireland are not too complicated if you have driven around big or medium cities, but we got lost for a moment, given we took the wrong exit from Dublin, but was only a minor mistake and we could maintain a good speed and keep the right route direction from that moment and on.
The car had a nice panoramic top.
About the roads... well up to 80kms away from Dublin and about the last 100km near Limerick we had a nice highway... but the rest... a two-way normal road, with good pavement, normally quite wide, with not too much traffic, but not as comfortable as highway driving. Anyway I would say that the roads here in Ireland are not so bad as people say, and they are improving them. You could see the works for a highway at many different points next to the road we drove through.
As we had a 4x4 car, we had to do something with it... what about jumping over the grass to park, instead of going around? That's a good idea.
Don't worry, the grass will grow again in a minute, with so much rain...
After the whole morning driving, with some stops to rest, and with a long final drive, where we were all starving and a little bit annoyed because of so much car, we got to Killarney. We arrived at Neptune's hostel which is in the city center and discovered the nice place.
Group picture, from top left to bottom right: Jose Luis, Luis, Daniel, Kai, Maria Jose, Laura and me.
On that day I discovered hostels, good ones, because I had never been in one of them before and it is actually very nice. You have a shared kitchen where you can cook and use dishes and everything. You clean everything after and you are done. That way you can save a lot in food, and as you can see in the next picture, it had everything you could need, clean and ready.
The hostel's kitchen.
After eating and resting we were ready to spend the evening walking around the town, getting to now the surroundings, which are part of Killarney National Park. A really beautifull place, with some lakes, mountains and nice landscapes.
Ross castle.
A view of the lake.
Torc waterfall.
Also while we were walking around, we got to a dead end... but that's no problem for us, intrepid travellers.
Jump!
We even found near the path, on top of a fence, The Ring of Kerry!! hehe, or also as many of you would like to call it, "my trrrreeeasure".
Ring of Kerry.
The last part of the evening, as we had walked for a long while (3 or 4 kilometers), was time for the car again. So we took it and drove around. We went for two hours around the lakes, through the black valley, a really beautiful landscape, and returned to killarney.
Our car in the black valley.
After the drive we got to Killarney again quite late, so we decided to go out and eat, that way we could visit any of the pubs around the city. We asked in the hostel reception for a good option and they told us where to go. Of course it was a good place, good price and with good food that we enjoyed all together.
Next morning we started the route around the ring of Kerry, from Killarney, driving over the north part, till the west end of the peninsula, and back again taking the road passing near the sea, on the south coast.
We spent several hours around, and visited towns like Killorgin and Cahersiveen from where we entered Valentia Island.
View from Valentia Island.
The day before we were lucky and had very good weather, with a nice sun and warm temperature, but Ireland cannot be so sunny, because if that happened it would be called Spain instead. So the next day wasn't so good, and we had lots of rain, cold, wind... as you can see in this picture.
Daniel's hair suffered the blow.
After going around Valentia island we headed south next to the coast, and reached the west end of the peninsula, where we found the most beautiful views.
Cows next to the sea, a picturesque view.
A wonderful beach between mountains and rocks, it must be a great place to swim in a sunny day.
During the route we stopped in many places to take pictures, it was amazingly beautiful, and a very enjoyable experience, but every time you exited the car, the cold was sooooo intense... your face ended up like this.
We planned to eat somewhere around, but had to eat inside the car for obvious reasons.
So we completed the ring at about 4 in the evening, and got to Killarney, from where we took the road back to Dublin. Some hours later we were all safely home.
We had a wonderful, amazing and incredible time with everyone. A really unique experience, mostly because of all the good people that traveled together and the fun we enjoyed. Thanks to you guys who joined us, specially Maria Jose, who left Ireland permanently today and Jose and Luis who came from Madrid to visit us for those two days.
Outstanding experience from which you have more pictures in the gallery. Enjoy.