Killarney, Ireland

We woke up early in the morning to a beautiful day!  We were pretty excited about the bus tour on the Ring of Kerry but thought that it started a little later so we were forced to rush through breakfast a little.  There was this older irish guy who came and picked us up in his car at the hostel.  The irish are extremely friendly and when most of the time on our tour we have had to ask people for help, the irish are asking us all the time if we need anything.  This guy was cracking jokes and making us laugh the whole way to the bus.  This gave us an idea of how the tour was going to go and made us even more excited.  We hopped on the bus with about 20 other people that were all like 90 years old.  The man who gave us a ride to the bus was telling us that we must be the youngest couple to ever visit Killarney.  I don't understand why, but I think that most of the young people stay in Dublin and drink.  I guess they don't understand that the people everywhere in Ireland drink.  Anyway, on the first stop we saw the peat farms and an old irish town where we had the best coffee we have had in all of europe.  Then we went drove on, the driver cracking jokes and describing the countryside, to see the tallest mountain in Ireland before stopping at a shepherd's house.  This was one of the best things on the tour by far.  The shepherd had 3 dogs that were all trained on different commands and whistles so that he could use them individually.  He provided a demonstration with his dogs and a small flock of sheep.  I wish Bandit was this well trained, these dogs could do anything at any distance up to a half mile away.  It was really cool to see.  Then the shepherd described the many different sheep varieties from all over Europe.  After the shepherd's house we went to this little irish town on a lake and ate lunch.  Everybody from the tour went and ate at some fancy hotel while Cheryl and I packed a lunch and ate at the school on the lake.  It was a beautiful day and the driver told us that we were lucky because the tour the day before didn't get to see much due to the rain.  After lunch we went to the west coastline.  It was beautiful!!  Ireland has sandy beaches, little islands, and big cliffs with waves crashing in.  The best part is the green, irish green.  We stopped several times for pictures along the coast and we tried our best not to fill up the memory card on the camera as we still had 2 hours left of the tour.  We stopped at a little town on the coast that is known as the cleanest town in Ireland.  Cheryl and I went down to the river and snapped a few pictures before I stopped into the pub for a Guinness.  After the coast he drove into the mountains over windy passes with views of lakes, rolling hills, and mountains everywhere.  The road was very small in areas and it made me feel bad for the other cars on the road when they saw our huge bus coming around a tight corner.  The mountains were not very big, at just over 3,000 feet, but provided great views.  There was one especially great view called the valley of 40 shades of green and the name says it all.  We had one last stop on the tour which was the viewpoint of Queen Victoria.  I guess it was one of her favorite spots whenever she came to the island.  This was a view of the 3 lakes of Killarney in Killarney national park.  As we were rolling back into town, all Cheryl and I could talk about was how we wished that we had more time in Ireland.  We definitely plan on coming back for a much longer visit someday.  When we arrived back in town we made dinner and discussed our plans for the next day.  I met up with a guy from Limerick and a palestinian guy and we went out for a couple beers before bed.  It was a wonderful day!