The Vin-meister

One day I decided to go on a run -- as I was coming back to the house, this tan dog came up to me. Now that I've become a lover of dogs, I bent down to pet it. Then out of nowhere this big, black, stinky dog we call Jasmine, came hurtling towards me, jumped and then body slammed me! It was nuts. I look up after staggering back and I see our self-appointed town watchmen, Vinny, and he is pointing at me. He always has a grimace on his face, so I wasn't sure if he thought I was torturing his dog, or something else. He yells to me, but I couldn't understand him. Why? Because no one knows what the heck he is saying. He might talk in Gaelic, but most likely he just has a hardcore accent. I ran up to him to see what he had to say. I've talked to him multiple times, but I usually don't know what he's saying, so I make up my own conversation with him. For example:

"Hi Vinny, how are you?"

V- "Blup brr schna"

"Ya ya, me too. It's been a lovely day, eh?"

V- "Schmee tak bleh"

"Mmm, yes. But we'll have to watch out for rain soon."

V- "Quell yatch mull ta?"

"Well, I'm going to go eat dinner now. Running, you know - makes me hungry."

V- "Crat etul mill."

"Thank you. You have a nice evening too."

I walked off towards the house and then remembered that I needed to put oil in the car. As I was doing so, I looked up and Vinny was giving me one of those old man looks of ... Then he pops up from his usual stance (leaning on a wall or fence or car - always leaning) and rushes off to the pub up the street, no doubt to tell the tale of the strange girl who runs on the Island.

Ps: Earlier that day when I had been cleaning the car and checking all of it's fluids, Jasmine had come up to me to say hello. Then five minutes later I see Jasmine trotting past the car and up the street with half a bag of white bread. It looked oddly familiar... Turns out, Jasmine had gone into our house, up the stairs, into the kitchen, onto the counter and took our moldy white bread we discovered that morning - wow.

Meet Vinny - He is keeping tabs on the people down by the pier (and us, for that matter)

We couldn't get his picture from the front without him noticing ... This is him having just discovered some valuable information and running up to Boston's (the pub) to tell anyone who'll listen.

Ireland -- it's cold, but we still went swimming

One fine day, the four of us decided to go down to the nearest beach. Hillary and Miriam were intent on swimming in the ocean water -- Jeanne and I, on the other hand, were just fine with kicking the soccer ball around. It was a warm day for Ireland, but was it really warm enough to swim?

<- Hillary and Miriam before the plunge

<- Hillary and Miriam during the plunge

<- Hillary and Miriam after the plunge

When they took the plunge, Hillary kept screaming because of it's chill. Why does she torture herself? She loves the water that much. The story ends like this: After playing soccer for a bit, I was just roasting! So I stripped off my cardigan jumped into the water! Hillary was so kind to go in again with me. And you know what? It really wasn't too cold.

My cousin, Brittney, and I used to say, when we were little, that if you touched the ocean water you had to go in all the way. We would be out at out Grandma and Grandpa's, thigh deep in the ocean - Jordan and Ryan already swimming about. Britt and I would stand there and laugh and scream and count to three about twenty-one times before we actually went all the way in. Every time I am near the water, I think about this little pact of sorts. So, when I walked into the ocean upon first coming to the beach to take pictures of Hillary and Miriam, I knew that I wouldn't leave without jumping in all the way.

<- Succes!

Below here is a lovely picture of the four of us jumping for joy. We climbed up a "mountain" on the Island and soaked in the sights. We tend to take adventures like this everyday - stay tuned for more!

The Tale of the Two Hitchhikers

I forgot to tell you all about the hitchhikers we picked up! Don't worry Mom, it's not as terrible as you are thinking. We were on our way home from town and back on the Island... when we see two boys on the side hoping to get picked up. Hillary and I yell something unintelligable in our excitement, and I stopped the car. The two boys hopped right in and said they needed to get to Knightstown - Perfect! We're going there too (Not that there's anywhere else to go...). Now, let me describe these boys - blue eyed, blonde haired boys around the ages of 13 and 10 ... maybe a little younger. (Do you feel better about it now Mom?) The older said to us, "You all are working for Bobbi?" How did they know!? They began to explain that their Mom, Sandra, is the woman who comes to the house every other day to pick up and drop off boxes of books. I asked their names, and it was so cute because they both answered at the same time, so we're not too sure who is who -- Stephen and Curran. Hill asked them if they could tell where we were from. The younger one piped up, "You're from America!" Haha - too cute. Then Hillary said, "Do you guys hitchhike a lot?" The older one replied, "Well, yah. But we usually know everyone." It's true - it's not everyday you meet people from different countries on the Island. All in all, it was a lovely first experience with picking up hitchhikers. I hope all your fears are put to rest. :0)

Beautiful days

<-- The Cafe/Bookstore

Down at the beach with the dogs --,

\/

Good afternoon world!

I have already been up for over six hours and it's

barely noon! Needless to say, I am just pumped with energy due to lack of sleep -- but with that comes a crash and burn in the afternoon that I'm not looking forward to. Bobbi and Sophie left for California at three am this morning - and so begins our full take over of the nine dogs (see pictures below!). I woke up before six this

morning to let the dogs out, and then at eight thirty I fed them breakfast. In between those two and a half hours, I watched the sun rise and listened to Chris Tomlin whilst on the roof of our house. It was a lovely beginning to the day! Thus far I've tried in vain to get Bria to eat (she's having withdrawals from Bobbi, already), threw the ball around for the pups down at the beach, and made a delightful breakfast.

<-- North-ish side of the Island

Hill and I atop a "mountain" --,

\/

LATER

The four of us - Miriam, Jeanne, Hillary and I - went to the West end of the Island. We live on the East end. Anyways, at the west end there are amazing cliffs, and today we could see the Skellig Islands. It was majestic! We spent the whole afternoon there, soaking up the sun.

Skellig Islands -->

(The Island on the right has an old monastery on top, which is the reason for their fame)

Speaking of sun ... An old man told us to not get sunburned, because all of the sun we were having (haha). It was funny meeting this old man ... we were in town the other day, all of us getting into the car... When an old man

comes up to me and says, "What did you do? Run into barbed-wire?" I laughed and said no. And then he asked, "What's in your nose then?" Laughing, I told him that it was a nose ring. Oh man, then we had a few more laughs about how, yes, You Grandpa, don't like it either :0). Also, the man said that he had spotted us across the way in the Butcher Shop - Turns out, he is the famous Ted Kennedy. He has a taxi service -- drives everyone wherever they need to go and only need about four hours of sleep. He was driving Bobbi and Sophie to the airport that night. Nice chap.

Hillary near a cliff on the Island! -->

For those of you who didn't know... I am now the sole driver in the house. Since Bobbi left, someone had to be able to drive into town for food and such -- And I am apparently the only one old enough, haha. It's been interesting reigning in my skills from driving in New Zealand. I'll get the hang of it again.

Hillary and I went on a lovely walk to the Island's Lighthouse this last week. It took about two hours to walk there and back -- but definitely worth it. We usually work in the morning and then do something fun/active in the afternoon. Finally got a soccer ball to practice with! And we are constantly playing cards at night - Jeanne taught us a new way to play speed (Kim, I'll have to show you You'll love it).

<-- WOOFERS: (L to R) Miriam, Jeanne, Sophie, and Hillary

Have a lovely week!

Peace

The Dogs

LUCY - The old woman

SALLY - The adventurer of the crew

MOLLY - She's got the game of 'catch' down to an art

MADDOCK - The Grandpa of the group (aside from the fact that he is quite a young chap

BRIA - Don't let the size of her fool you. She owns the place.

MAY - The sweet one. She has awesome eyes too! One's brown and the other, blue.

MAGGIE - The twin

MORGAN - The other twin

JOEY - The newest addition and he is afraid of everything.

A Summary

We ended our first day in Ireland going to a pub with our newfound friend, Francy. Her homeland being Germany, she was off on a two month adventure in Ireland by herself. Ireland is pretty safe to travel by oneself, but traveling alone could be quite lonely - in my opinion. We listened to live traditional Irish music while chatting with a couple from Chicago.

The next day, we found ourselves waiting at the Cahersiveen bus station and in anticipation... we were excited to have so many questions answered.

1. Was Bobbi a man or woman?
2. Were the rescue dogs doing the rescuing or were they being rescued by us (possibly having three legs and one eye)?
3. Where were we living?
4. Were there other WOOFERS at the Knightstown Cafe?

Bobbie Zeff is a lovely woman of about fifty years from California, who fell in love with the Island of Valentia. She started the Knightstown Cafe about thirteen years ago with her two sons- one son fell in love with an Irish lady and now lives here. Through the past few years she has acquired nine dogs... who neither rescue nor are missing any limbs. She has taken in these dogs who have crazy stories of being locked up, about to be shot, and generally terribly abused. I’ll have pictures and names of all nine soon! Bobbi is quite nice and always laughing - some have called her woof site a refuge. She took Hillary, Jeanne and I to the supermarket and said, “Get whatever you want. The only thing I don’t pay for is alcohol and cigarettes.” We might have gone wild with food...

The place we are living in is huge! It is 10,000 square feet with three floors and holds the cafe, bookstore, kitchen, woofer rooms, and some random other rooms for storage. Then there is a lovely garden on the side of it and Bobbi’s house in the back. Her property runs from the main street in Knightstown to the water. Hillary and I were placed on the second floor in the pink room - holy cow it’s pink! My bed is surrounded by mirrors.

As far as other woofers - we came the same day that Jeanne came. She is a french girl who has been hitchhiking around Ireland for the past five months. She is also a chef! And then there is Xeno and Kristianna. A couple from Switzerland who are in the middle of a six month trip around Ireland, but they left this morning. There is also a sweet German girl, Sophie, and Susannah from Slovakia.

Our first day on the Island didn’t start out too well. Both Hillary and I slept terribly. We got up to start work and couldn’t find anyone! We wandered aimlessly for an hour until we discovered that everyone was down at the beach hauling rocks. We helped for about two minutes, and then they were done. How embarrassing...

We’ve found out that Bobbi takes naps every afternoon - this leisure time for us has been spent, so far, going on walks or reading books. I think Hillary and I read pretty much all day yesterday. I actually finished a book - Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen. Our first day we took a walk with Jeanne - a swan almost took her finger off. This morning the three of us took a walk with eight out of the nine dogs along the beach because it was low tide - two of the dogs (one who can barely walk!) went on ahead of us and we lost them, whoops! They were found later roaming around a neighboring field.

The only other work we’ve done so far is: gardening one morning (Hill and I planted Daffodil bulbs), taking stickers off of journals with goo gone, and randomly hauling books up and down the stairs to different rooms.

Last night was quite exciting. Jeanne got bored and decided to make four of us a gourmet dinner - it was so good that she has possibly changed my mind about mushrooms! We also played spoons and I tried some guiness. I don’t like it, but it wasn’t terrible.

All in all, it’s been good and I'm excited to see what other odd jobs we do. Hillary and I have a goal: to be invited to tea by a lovely Irish lady. We'll see if this happens.

There's No Place Like Home

Yes, I said it. There is no place like home! As Hillary and I wereawaiting our drive to the airport on Monday morning, we were told, at a local coffeeshop in Charlotte, NC, that there was a tornado watch going on. We very calmly asked what we were supposed to do if a tornado came our way - the owner said that the bank had a "shelter" (he actually did air quotes ... that's very reassuring...) Hillary told me later that day, "You know, I'm okay with taking a bit more rain up in the Northwest - I'd rather have rain than tornadoes." - Yes please.

Turns out, the only thing we met was a big thunderstorm --- in the air. The turbulence of the flight from Charlotte to Philadelphia was unreal! Hillary is gripping my leg, there is a man across the aisle from me doing sudoku (how he could write is beyond me) and a women a row in front of us sharing the love of Jesus to a Canadian college kid ---needless to say, I was giggling at all the absurdity. And praying.

A few randoms at the airport: Hill and I splurged on some chips and salsa - who knows when the next time will be?, we chuckled with a TSA employee about how it was so hot in the airport because the people hadn't turned it down from the past week of cold, and Hill and I ended up running to our gate in Philly -- turns out that was a ridiculous move on our part. I think I lost a lung there...

The flight to Ireland was only five and a half hours to my surprise. Both Hill and I didn't sleep, so we've been up for days! We traveled to Killarney today by double decker city bus and train. Ireland is very beautiful - very scenic. Also, the people have been so nice - especially the old men. So many of them have helped us out today!

The dreaded "W" word was mentioned on accident at customs in the airport ... the man was hesitant to let us in the country, but then changed his mind. He said, "I don't want to spoil your ladies' holiday." And when he found out we worked in Alaska in the summers he said, "Well, I'll come over there when they start paying us proper wages here!".

When we arrived in Killarney, we were so tired and laughing about everything ... stumbling around the streets with laughter. This elderly man looked at me and I said, "We're having too much fun!" And he said, "That's what life is for!" Then another elderly man saw that we were trying to figure out where to go, and said he could help us - he walked us all the way to our hostel and told us a bit about the town and his life along the way. It's just been lovely.

Hillary and I just ate a delicious and cheap meal of chicken and fries. We just finished a LONG walk to Ross Castle in the National Park here. It is beautiful and on a lake. Hopefully I can post a picture...

Last... and perhaps least, you choose. Remember that one time Hillary and I took awhile getting through customs in Ireland? Well, while we were chatting with the nice official there, there was another official in the same boxed room chatting with a guy on the otherside. I looked at him through the windows - only took notice that he was quite a short guy. My height, maybe. Before we left, our official dude asked us if we knew who Bruno Mars was - we replied with a yes - and he said, "Well he was just right there a minute ago, apparently." WHAT?! ...Crazy! (Mom, Bruno Mars is a famous pop singer).

Anyways, keep you updated!