Ireland VII

Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V
Part VI

Killarney, June 7, 1999
It has been a shitty day, literally and figuratively. It started out as a normal, pleasant morning, until I had a nervous breakdown brought on by stepping in a massive pile of dog doo.

The previous day had been golden. After doing our best imitation of mountain goats, we'd retreated from the mountainside and spent the rest of the afternoon wandering paths that led to a small river, where we skipped stones and dozed on the gravelly bank, followed by ice cream cones when we returned to town.

The next morning we decided we would get a closer view of the bay since we had time before our bus to Killarney would be leaving. While wandering through the wooded area between the town and the bay, I managed to step in an enormous pile of dog crap. Being afflicted with the 'overweening dignity' of youth this seemed like a personal insult delivered by the hand of a malicious universe. I nursed my wounded pride while sitting on a large stone in a clearing liberally dotted with piles of fly-covered shit, dismally attempting to clean my only pair of shoes.

Jo thought the incident was hilarious. Had our positions been reversed, I would have thought the same, but at the time being laughed at only made my mood that much darker. I behaved like a bitch, snapped at her and walked off in a huff. It was not until we were on the bus to Killarney later that day that my mood started to lighten.

It would have been difficult to stay angry during that amazing bus ride. The narrow little road wound up into the mountains ringing Bantry Bay, where it hovered near the top of the peaks for quite some time with a very steep, high drop-off on one side. The view was spectacular and highly intimidating when seen from inside a large, swaying bus. Any time traffic approached going the other direction, both vehicles would have to slow down and squeeze over as far as possible in order to manuever past. At one point, I snapped a picture of the drop off and realized just as I clicked the button that the odd-looking specks at the bottom were in fact the wreckage of a vehicle.

Killarney was nice little town, whose main claim to fame was its proximity to the Killarney National Forest, a place of mountains, huge lakes and even a castle. We spent some time exploring the area of the park closest to the town, then returned to the hostel, where we watched Batman in the common room with a crowd of other back-packing youth.

They have a coed bathroom here. Not one of those genderless, one toilet bathrooms that any man, woman or child can use. This is a full-fledged coed bathroom with toilet stalls, a shower for boys and one for girls. I walked in there, feeling a bit weird, and a guy walks in behind me. I turn, we look at each other for a second and then go into our respective stalls. It took me a while to let loose, but it took him even longer!

The next day we spent more time in KNF. The park was huge, and the day before we'd considered renting bikes in order to see more of it, but ended up changing our minds. Instead we rented a rowboat and spent time clumsily paddling around one of the lakes while singing whatever songs came to mind. We were both pretty homesick at this point and it definitely put a damper on our time in Killarney, but we managed to have fun even so.