Ireland- Shannon Airport to Killarney (Sunday)

After an overnight flight with about two hours sleep, we landed at Shannon Airport in southwest Ireland. It is better for jetlag ans scheduling to fly overnight, but it is always a jolt to stumble groggily out of the airplane, over to the Avis desk, pick up the car, then find yourself driving down a high speed freeway is some foreign country. I still can't believe that they let you rent a car, without giving some kind of driving test. On our first honeymoon, we drove all over England and Scotland, so you would think that I would have it down, but how far did I make it before driving down the wrong side of the road? Less than 1 km! The car coming at us just kind of stopped and looked.

We rented one of those micro cars, literally a nissan "micra". Its a four-door that is smaller than any US two-door. Although, I'd love to have my Discovery here, this car makes it a lot easier to park and take super tight turns.

The weather here is overcast with occassional rain, with highs in the low 60s, as opposed to Sacramento which is in the high 90s.

Our first stop in Ireland was Bunratty castle, a refurbished castle and a recreated village. I thought that it might be cheesy in a 6th grade field trip kind of way, but it was totally cool imagining life here before the industrial revolution. We ate lunch on site and got back to the car when jet lag caught up. Siobhan and I took an unplanned 45 minute nap in the parking lot. Something about a warm car...

We stopped at a grocery store to buy snacks. Its interesting to note that not only are you expected to bag your own groceries, but you also have to pay for the bags.

After about an hours drive, we made it to our B & B. It was quite cute and clean. We unloaded and headed into the town of Killarney, where we found a pub and grabed dinner. I had Irish Stew and Siobhan had a baked potato stuffed with chicken and mushroom. After that hardy and delicious meal, we made it back to the hotel and crashed for the night.