T-SHIRT TIMEEE

So I decided that I wanted to get out of Galway for the weekend and travel. A bunch of the girls were going to Paris for the weekend but I really wanted to save Paris until my friend from BC is there so I can visit her. I decided to take a bus to a town called Killarney with Haley. We wanted to see the Ring of Kerry. We left on Friday at 9a.m. (after going to bed very late on Thursday it was difficult getting up so early) and we were not supposed to get to Killarney until 2ish. However, somehow we got on a nonstop bus and we made it to Killarney by 12:30p.m. and only had to change buses once. When we got there we realized that we had no idea where our hostel was or where anything was for that matter. We walk outside of the bus station/mall and find a map of the town. We study it for a little and just start walking (mostly because we forgot to look up what street our hostel was - we just knew it was near the national park). We walk for awhile and the town is gorgeous but we do not find out hostel. We finally stop at a gas station and ask them where Paddy's Palace is (yupp that's the name of our hostel). We are not that far from it and we also find the tourist office. We stop by at the tourist office first to ask about the Ring of Kerry tour. They were so nice there and gave us lots of literature on Ireland. We then found Paddy's Palace only to see a sign on the door that said "Closed from 2-4." We found a cafe called O'Brien's. I got a latte and a bagel and we hung out for a little since we had a lot of time to waste. We left the cafe and walked around the town, bags and all. We stopped at a couple of souvenir stores and I bought a shot glass. I decided that I want to get a shot glass from every place I visit while abroad. After what seems like forever, we realize it is 4p.m. and we head to Paddy's. The deal at the hostel was buy one night get the second night free (perfect for broke college kids) so it ended up being 10Euros a night for a double room which was perfect. The room was small but clean and we had our own bathroom. When we left to go anywhere though we had to leave the key to our room which was a little weird.

As soon as we put all of our stuff down we headed for the Killarney National Park. It was really warm outside so I only had on a sweatshirt but for most of the time I was actually only wearing a t-shirt. :) The park was beyond gorgeous. The sun was out over the mountains which looked so beautiful and the rest of the park was pretty. I am not usually one for nature necessarily but this place is a must see. We walked around the park for around 2 hours if not more. We wanted to walk to Ross Castle which is located in the park but unfortunately all routes to the castle were flooded. Instead we walked as far as we could and got some pictures near the river and you can see the castle in the distance.

We had dinner at Eddie Rockets and then went back to the hostel to get ready. We decided to go to a place called O'Connors because they were supposed to have live music. Well on the sign outside it said that live music starts at 9-ish (I have no idea what that is supposed to mean) so we decide to get there at 10. Well at 10 the band still had not gone on so apparently 9-ish really means 10-ish. We decided we did not want to stay and headed to a place called The Danny Mann Inn that had a one man band playing. We sat at the bar and I ordered a Guiness and we watched the guy perform. After we were done with our beers we headed back to Paddy's since we had to be up early in the morning.


We left for the Ring of Kerry tour at 10:30a.m. and did not get back until 4:15p.m. It was a long but exciting day. The Ring of Kerry is a long road around mountains in Ireland. It was beautiful out in the beginning of the day and then started to rain (shocking). We got to see the Dingle Peninsula and the Ballinskellig Bay along with Ladies View among a bunch of other places. One place was prettier than the next.









Tonight we got a quick dinner and then headed to a place called Courtney's which was interesting and had some weird people in it and then we went back to The Danny Mann Inn where the band played "Galway Girl" <3 Overall the weekend was amazing and I got to see so much.