The Amazing Maracas Player!

I found a local community church! Got the phone number and decided to give them a ring to see what time the service is. When we showed up on Sunday morning we were greeted with such kindness and love. In a few minutes time, Hillary was holding the newest born child of the church and we were being given the run down on everyone who came to the church. Haha - most of the people, though, were late or just didn’t show up because of the time change. This created some chaos - the piano player wasn’t there (we all know how important a piano player is in church - MOM), the heat wasn’t turning on, the internet wasn’t working properly, etc etc... We had a lovely time of singing - Hill was dubbed the best maracas player in the country. Apparently the pastor is from Michigan and is a pastor for a few churches in County Kerry, so he comes for Thursday night services. I had talked to him on the phone earlier that week (Pastor Barry) - so when we showed up, everyone had heard of a girl named Ericka. Haha - oh Ireland. My favourite lady there is Eileen. An Englishwoman with the craziest life story/Jesus moment. It was a lovely experience and we hope to become chummy with this community.

Yesterday we stopped by an old castle ruin on the other side of Cahirsiveen. Our other housemate, Zuzy (from Slovakia), came with us - She is usually working, at a garden, everyday, so it was fun to have her accompany us.

You know, Jeanne and I were just talking about how we go on all of these adventures and how it can be difficult to portray to others the incredibleness of it all. There are so many details that can go into one story that complete it, but are very minor by themselves. So, I am going to try to explain this little adventure in a different way (with some help from my friend, Jane).

We have found one CD that works in our car that is neither classical piano nor non-authentic native american music, and that we can mostly agree with. We arrived at our destination having listened to the seventh song of the CD for the thirty-first time. It has a slight electronic style to it, but a laid back sound that had put us all into a melancholy mood. After dodging a barbed-wire fence and walking up a grassy hill, we were in the shadow of a massive ruin. It had ivy growing the whole of the west wall and the afternoon sun was putting a golden glow on the entire setting. As always, I was coming up in last - it has it’s advantages. I am able to pick up on people’s tendencies. Miriam is always trying to scale a wall; Jane tries to do something daring but hesitates halfway through (Miriam yelling at her to keep going); Zuzy takes lovely photos; and Hillary assess the whole of the situation, usually by going to the top straightaway or walking all the way around first. Today though - Hillary was already through the ruin to check the grounds on the other side; Jane somehow made it to the outside wall first and was already climbing up it to a hole; Miriam was right behind her; and Zuzy was taking a photo of the whole ruin. I went through a ground level hole in the wall, scaled a wall to another hole where I met both Jane and Miriam. We found Hillary at the top of the structure. The back of the ruin being gone, we took in the green fields with the sea behind. And because it is an extraordinary moment, I took a picture of Jane and Hill jumping (I hope you all don’t get too tired of our jumping photos. It’s the only thing that makes sense in an epic moment). I joined Hill and Zuzy in a room - they were discussing, in a sarcastic tone, about how the nine by five foot room was the perfect place to live; the hole in the ground serving as both the toilet and garbage. I looked to the south where a wall should have been and saw Jeanne running down the grassy field, Miriam’s camera in hand -

meanwhile Zuzy left the room and had been replaced by a couple.

This moment will now be captured and translated through the eyes of Jeanne Debanne:

Not knowing what to do, having explored the entire castle (or almost), I went down into the large grass field dominated by the ruins. When I looked up, I chuckled: Hillary and Ericka had found fellow Americans, a couple in their fifties visibly travelers. They were chatting, all four in a corner of the castle, as if they met in the living room of a mutual friend's house on a sunday afternoon. Zuzana was wandering aimlessly on the crooked paths inside the castle, and Miriam, as usual, had scaled a wall at the far end of the ruin and her silhouette told me she was absorbing the view and was quietly marveling.

Waterville and Other Escapades

Sometime in the last week or two: we decided to take a day trip to Waterville - a lovely seaside town. It’s known for being the holiday hot spot for Charlie Chaplin, back in the day - we took many photos with the statue of him. My favourite part of the day was: we were on the way and stopped at a beach we thought was in Waterville (see photo above). It was a lovely sandy beach with a castle ruin next to the water. We spent some time there -- Miriam and I tried to boulder on some big rocks. Miriam loves to climb! And she's great at it. I’ve lost some of my skill though, due to my wrist fractures.

<- Hillary with Charlie Chaplin

At a random beach ->

A couple of days after Waterville we decided to go to another beach we had seen coming back from Waterville. It had a California feel to it - mainly because there was a surfing sign. Surfing in Ireland? Who knew? We got there and sure enough, there were a few surfers out in the water. It wasn’t that warm of a day, but I suppose when the waves are calling you, you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do!

Here we were on the beach - Jane and I playing soccer, and Miriam and Hillary flicking sand at a dog who would jump at it (apparently his favourite game in the world). I decided to get a little mischievous ... I stopped the soccer fun and went over to where Hillary and Miriam were preparing to put their feet in the water. Miriam was slightly in front of Hillary, but I thought maybe my plan would work. I then sunk my foot into the sand and flicked it out, which flung chunks of sand straight into the side of Hillary’s face - IT WAS AWESOME (perf).

So, of course it became an all out sand fight, which then turned into a water fight. Jane completely took me out into the water - Hillary, Miriam and I, in turn, ganged up on Jane ... but somehow Hill and I still found ourselves completely drenched in the sea water. To my defense, I did successfully get both Hillary and Jane covered in sand. It was fun, yet slightly cold...

We went back to the car, decided we needed a photo, so I asked this dude who was just chillin’ in his car.

Me - “Hi, could you take a picture of the four of us please?”

Dude - “Uh, sure...”

Me - “Sweet - thanks, you’re a champ.”

Dude - “Uh ... okay. Heh.”

<- The aftermath ... you can't see the ocean and sand on us, but it was!

Now, the girls make fun of me for calling a complete stranger a champ and how I tend to talk to every stranger we pass by (I just like to strike up conversation, okay. Plus, that way you meet people!)

THEN, we stopped by a coffee shop - hoping beyond all hopes that they would let us order some coffee/hot chocolate despite our wet and sandy attire. I pulled up, got out and saw a man that looked like an owner of a coffee shop.

“Hello! Do you work here?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Oh, great! As you can see, we’re completely wet - we decided to jump into the ocean today.”

“Well, that was silly!” (he said this with a smile in his eyes and laughter in his voice - PS)

“Haha, yes, but it was fun and not too cold.”

“Okay, right.”

“Well, we were wondering if it’s possible to get some coffee drinks to go. We don’t want to get your furniture all wet and sandy.”

“Oh, right. Yes - of course!”

What a delightful man! We ended up stopping by the place a few days later to have a picnic behind his house/cafe where some cliffs can be seen by the public. Met the man’s wife, Mary, and his name is John - They were so interested in what we were doing in Ireland. I told them about WOOFing and how they could set something like that up. (They leave their home sometimes after the Summer season, and need someone to watch it for them - maybe I will do that after Alaska!)

<- Our picnic by the cliffs (we eat well!)

The next day we went to town! Why were we excited? Because the ferry finally started! A nice Spaniard, Mariano, collects the money and another man sails the thing. We were the only ones on it going to Cahirsiveen; however, on the way back we had the company of two other cars - Not that you have time to converse... It takes a total of seven minutes to cross to the other side.

While in town, we visited the French Patisserie. I finally got a cappuccino to drink and Jane ordered delicious goodies for us in French (much to her embarrassment - why was she embarrassed to speak her first language to another french woman? We’ll never understand...) We also stopped by this random discount store to look for blank CDs and ask about a guitar - here we met a nice guy called Tommy. He asked if we’d been around more of Ireland. We told him we’d love to and are planning on it; and we’d especially love to go to Dingle. Well, it just so happens that he is from there and is going there this Friday. He offered us a lift! We'll see if that happens...

Ta ta for now!

<- The owner of the cafe let me take a mug of coffee + baileys to the cliffs with me

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)