We we're still alive. We walked Tomies Wood today, right across from Killarney, where Tamara and I might be spending our free day. This is supposed to be the easy trek. Gah.

Our hike was by Lough Leane, on the south and west of Killarney. We walked up and up, then walked down these wooden steps that I knew I was going to die on climbing back up to look at a waterfall. After dying on the way back up, we walked up and up and up and got to the place where we were going to start walking down when our guide decided we should back track and walk up to where there used to be a path so we walked up even more.

After walking through Sheep Dropping Meadow, we walked through the Bog on the Mountain, then down through the Slippery Jungle Path to a point where the path was blocked. So we had to walk back up.

Finally, we got to walk back down and, even though we walked about a mile or two straight up, we only had to walk about twenty feet down to be back to where we started. But wait! That's not all! Instead of walking a half-mile to where we were dropped off, the guide told the bus driver to wait on the main road, which was another thousand miles away. The main road actually is just outside my house, back in America. So, after walking back to America and having to pee rather badly, we were taken back to the B&B.

Seeing as how we haven't done much else that day that is worth writing about, I'll mention everyone's favorite tourist game, "How Do You Work The Shower?"

In the B&B outside of Ennis, we had a box on the wall that the showerhead was attached to. There were three buttons on the box (high, low, and on/off) and a dial numbered from 1 to 10, with blue dots up to 5 and red dots from thereon to ten. One would think that this is the way one controls the temperature of the water. Not that I could tell. The high button meant warm water; the low button meant cool water. The dial does nothing.

In Tralee, there were two different shower nozzles and two different water-control knobs. After consulting the owner's manual and watching water shoot out from random places, I got clean.

Here, in Killorglin, we have what appears to be a normal shower water control thingy. However, the showerhead rests on a peg in the wall, with the peg going into the middle of the showerhead. This has the interesting result of shooting the showerhead off the wall if you turn the water on full blast. You can also set the showerhead in the holder thing up above you, but it is about eight or nine feet from the floor.

The entire room seems designed for giants. Over our bed is a reading lamp with a push button to turn the thing on or off. The only problem is it's mounted about six feet above the ground. To turn it off, you have to scoot all the way up to the head of the bed and kneel to reach the thing. At that point, you may as well just get out of bed and stand up.

Oh, the brand name on the showerhead? "Ideal Standard" I wonder what the product line's commercials are like. "When you're looking for the very best of mediocre products, look no further than Ideal Standard."

-FP