It's odd. We're on our vacation and here we are praying for rain. The reason why we're making these blood sacrifices is we don't want to climb another mountain, which is on the itinerary for today. Luckily we've got a deity who likes us, so we don't have to climb Knocknadobar's saddle. Yes, we've got rain today, and blustering winds. This, I understand, is what Ireland is like all the time. The previous few days of sun and pleasant weather are generally unheard of.

So it rained and our guide decided to take us into Killarney were we could spend some money and look at old Irish things that tourists like to look at. However, the bus had to come all the way from Dingle (yes, that's a real name. There's a town and a peninsula named that.) It didn't arrive until about 11 o'clock, when the rain and the wind was letting up.

Once again, our late-night worshipping worked just fine. Weather was too cruddy to go "walking", but was just fine to go sightseeing.

We stopped at Ross Castle, which was very similar to the MacNamara tower houses back in County Clare, but this one had a (rather good) guide. After being educated on the defensive things in the castle, we went off to Muckross, a name that combines the Gaelic words for "wooded peninsula" and "pig". No, really. Quit looking at me like that.

Muckross is really famous for having a really big house with old furniture in it with a large garden estate. We didn't go into the house. Rather, we went into the cafeteria to spend half of our allotted time in line for a surprisingly good sandwich. As this place is full of historical significance that I didn't pay any attention to, I'll now describe the sandwich.

The title of the sandwich was the "Coronation Chicken Breast", which is served on a bap. If you are like me (American), you have no clue what a bap is. It is a roundish, fluffy bread, much like a large hamburger bun in shape, but with tasty fluffy breadness inside. Nice and flaky, just like the girl I asked to senior prom many moons ago. Anyway. The chicken was breast meat, as you might guess from the title. However, it had two interesting things going for it: the curry mayonnaise which was absolutely superb -- just mild enough to suggest the curry flavor yet not too powerful to overwhelm the sandwich -- and pineapple, which offset the curry to bring a sense of balance to the meal. The curry and the pineapple were the yin and yang of the breaded delight.

Oh, there where neat flowers and plants there.

Then we went by the Torc Waterfall, which was really powerful, but that's because it was just raining for twelve hours straight. It was really, really neat. Not as neat as that sandwich, but really impressive.

After that, we went to Killarney, which is a rather large city, for Ireland. We dropped into two different stores and just handed our credit cards over to the nice person behind the counter. "Fill up several bags with expensive Ireland stuff, please," we said. And they did. We're going to need to have a baby before we go back home so we can take two extra suitcases back to America. That's how much stuff we purchased.

Anyway, after fifteen minutes of shopping, we realized we should have paced ourselves and decided to spend the next hour in a pub. We found a pub called "Foley's" (not hard to do in Co. Kerry), which is the wife's Irish side of the family's name. There, we each had a pint of Guinness.

There is Guinness everywhere. It's like in Texas, how every shop has Texas flags and you see the flag everywhere. Every single store in Ireland sells something with the Guinness logo stamped, embroidered, or printed on it. Every pub has a Guinness sign in the window or hanging overhead or emblazoned in stained glass in the window. It's everywhere. Yet there's no Harp things, which is just as Irish.

After that, we headed back to Killorglin via another view of the lake, complete with and old graveyard and church where I saw two Doyle tombstones (my Irish family's name on my mother's side).

Oh, and after dinner, we wandered into town to have a pint. The bartender gave my wife a Harp glass when she inquired where she could buy one. That's nice and all, but we wanted two. Now we have one and don't know were to get another one. I guess we'll have to visit another pub tomorrow night.

There are no leprechauns in Ireland. I think that's one national symbol that the Irish are embarrassed about.

-FP