Dingle (bells) and Cork

By Abigail Cakebread

Come one, come all! Freshly written (but we're going to pretend it's not, like we've totally had this for a while but haven't gotten around to posting it) and late (again), this adventure is gonna knock your socks off.

So what adventure doesn't start out with waking up at 4 am on a Thursday? No good story ever starts with “I woke up at 10 am”. Instead, it's this: I woke up at 4 freaking am and, half asleep, saw a figure looming over me. Now, since I was like 90% still asleep, I figured I had a 50/50 chance of dying if I hugged it. Who knows, it could just be a lonely monkey in need of companionship. Or it could be a bear. Like I said, 50/50. Then I realized what it actually was, and wished it was a bear. It was Dad, telling me to get up because we had an exciting four hour car ride to “look forward to”. Yay. Can't wait. So I get dressed (kind of. See, I can't remember if more than half of the clothes I was wearing was dirty, but it's a good bet to say yes) and ready (mentally and physically) and lugged out the clothes and stuff I had packed the night before. Plopping into my “comfy” car seat, I remembered that we were in an enclosed space with Mom. Unfortunately, I hadn't convinced them to invest in gas masks, so we were all in danger of death by suffocation.

Skipping the boring car ride listening to music and our book on tape, we arrived in Dingle (bells) and checked into our bed and breakfast place. Outside the B&B, there was a large Mickey Mouse in the water, almost looking like he was measuring the water level. I have a pic of him on my phone. The weather outside was windy and rainy and windy and windy (did I mention windy?). We all went to lunch at a bar near the B&B at Murphy's. I had pizza, but it was a letdown. All cheese, no sauce. Dad went back to the B&B to work, and Mom, Colleen, and I went shopping. Yay. Oh, how I love walking aimlessly into stores while the weather outside was just getting worse. After like two hours, we went to the B&B to chill and “enrich ourselves with the cultural audiovisual experience”, basically watch Brits do Brit things. We had dinner in town. Guess what? They had pizza, too. I was so excited, I might get a redo of lunch! This pizza was probably better! Guess what Mom said? No. Guess what Dad did? Tormented me. Of course. Because this is a loving, caring, supportive family.

Friday was cold. We had breakfast at the B&B. Then we decided to drive around the Dingle(bells) peninsula. We saw an old fort that had been used in the early 1100s and beyond. They cared a lot about their sheep. We saw some Celtic crosses and ancient beehive huts. There was no tour for the huts, so it was up to our imagination to figure out what they were used for. Best guess is houses.  We continued along, finding two loose sheep, and going to an early Christian church called the Something Oratory. Of course there were rainbows along the way. We also went to a ceramic gallery and picked up Gma's Christmas gift. We went back to the B&B to pack up and head to Cork. After more driving, we found a hotel and repeated yesterday, lunch and then shopping. There were a lot of lights. Unfortunately, my knee started hurting again. My knee has been hurting on and off for a few months now. Presently, it hasn't acted up any, but I'm keeping a wary eye on it. After walking around (and around and around and around), Dad met us for dinner, then we headed to our hotel.

Saturday was cold (when isn't it?). We had breakfast in Kinsale where we went to the Lemon Leaf Cafe. They surved the best shortbread I have ever had in all of my existence. Know what I didn't grab? The recipe. Of course. We walked around Kinsale, then decided to walk to Charles Fort. It was a pretty cool fort, but there was nothing that really jumped out at me. We walked back and wandered around Kinsale, then headed back to Cork.

Sunday we had Breakfast in Cobh (what kind of name is that??) and went to St. Colman's Cathedral. It was very big. Mom and I attended mass. Then we headed home for another fifty thousand hours.

This is Abigail Cakebread, signing off.