Life in Dingle

22 June 2012

One thing we’ve noticed about the UK is that there are literally NO old, beat-up cars. Not a one. It’s not like everyone is driving Ferraris, but they’re all driving decent cars.

The other thing we’ve noticed is that there are sheep EVERYWHERE. Seriously, we’ll be driving in the bus and then look out the window to see a bunch of green fields, separated from each other by lines of huge bushes, and a million little white dots throughout. Come to think of it, they do sell a lot of wool here.

Also, they have their signs in both English and Gaelic/Irish. Cool, right?

Random tid bit: One of the girls told me that the man who runs the inn we stayed at said “No probs.” No probs? That sounds like something an American teenage girl would say, along with “tots adorbs” and “sups awk.” I thought that was pretty funny.

Anyway, my first full day in Dingle was pretty great. We took the bus out to a place called Dún Beag Fort. No one really knows the story behind it, but it’s probably as old as 800 AD. And it’s made entirely of stone since Ireland has TONS of stone. And it’s right next to the Atlantic Ocean, so the view is beautiful!

I also got to crawl inside one of the rooms at the fort. The opening was more like a window than a door, but once I was inside, I could stand up.

This is next to the fort, so you can't see the fort in the picture.

While we were there, a dog started following our group around. He wasn’t a stray, but I’m not sure who he belonged to. He kept picking up a rock with his mouth and carrying it over to one of us. He would walk in between our legs and drop the rock by our feet, expecting us to pick it up and throw it for him. We tried to throw a different rock, but he only wanted his. I’m not sure what was so special about it. Haha.

He was so cute :)

After the fort, we went down the road to see a Beehive Hut. It’s made out of stone and shaped like a beehive, and it was inhabited anciently, clear up to as late as 1200 AD. So it was fun walking inside it.

Our next stop was the beach. The wind was blowing like crazy, which made it colder. But it was still cool to walk down to the shore. We found a starfish down there, and I touched the water just so I can say that I’ve touched the Atlantic Ocean in Ireland. 

This isn't where we went down, but look how pretty it is!

Also while we were there, some of the girls went surfing! The gift shop nearby lets people rent wet suits and boards for ten euros (about thirteen dollars). Most of us didn’t do it, but the ones that did said they had a lot of fun!

In the meantime, some of us spent time in the gift shop. While we were doing that, some random Irish man, probably about forty years old, came up and started hitting on one of the girls in our group, Kylee. We all think it was her red hair that got him. Haha. He told her they could go Irish dancing and that he would teach her how to do it. Luckily, she had to tell him no since she was here on a study abroad. Then he asked her what she was studying for her trip and whether she was studying Irish men because “that’s a good subject” (said while pointing to himself). Even after Kylee told him no, he still asked where she was staying (you know, so that he could pick her up to go dancing). Then Caroline stepped in and said, “We don’t know what it’s called.” No way were we telling him the name of our hotel. We’ve all seen the movie Taken. We know what can happen. Haha. Well, the man finally left Kylee alone, but it was hilarious! We were all laughing about it on the bus later.

Leaving the beach, we went back to our hotel in Dingle. We had the rest of the night to do whatever we wanted. So after brushing the knots out of our hair (they were SO bad) and doing some homework, a bunch of us decided to “go pubbing” as Palmer called it. First we went to a local restaurant and got some fish and chips. I'm not a huge fish lover, but I can't come to the UK and not eat fish and chips. Seriously. It was really good, and I split the cost with another girl, so it was totally worth it.

After dinner, we walked around the shops for a while. That was fun just to see the kinds of things they sell. There was a lot of wool and a lot of souvenirs with sheep on them. Haha.

Okay, this next part was probably the highlight of my whole day. We went to a pub! (It's called O'Sullivan's.) Every night in all the pubs, people start randomly playing music and singing songs. But it's impolite to go listen to the music if you don't buy anything. So all of us Mormon girls went in and bought 7UPs. They probably thought we were super weird. Haha. Then we met a couple from Cincinnati, Tony and Lisa, so that was fun to talk to them. But what made this night unforgettable was Philip.

Philip is an old Irish man and is about as friendly as they come. He memorized all of our names really fast, which was exceptionally impressive because he was definitely drunk. Haha. He said that one of the musicians who played at that pub had passed away on Wednesday, and the night before the funeral, it's tradition for everyone to go out and celebrate the person's death. So Phillip was out celebrating (AKA getting drunk). The requiem mass would be the next day.

At one point, Philip thought that we were all sisters and that the tony and Lisa were our parents. Yeah, definitely not. Haha. And later, he sang some Irish folk songs for us. It was great! Then he started going around the circle to try to get everyone else to sing a song, one at a time. And the first two girls actually did it! In the meantime, I was just praying that Philip would get distracted before he got to me. Luckily, Lisa started singing the theme song from "The Brady Bunch," and all the girls joined in. That seemed to satisfy Philip. Oh, and he also told us a story about hauling fish into a boat and how hard he had to work. He said the only thing that kept him and his friends going was Kylie Minogue, and he started singing "Do the Locomotion" and dancing. Haha. Best night ever. It was all just hilarious! And we all felt like we had had a real Irish experience after that.

Palmer and me at the pub!

We went to The Dingle Pub after that. That one was fun too but not quite as eventful. The music was really good there, but I definitely liked my experience at O'Sullivan's better.

 That night, I went back to my inn to go to sleep, and I could still hear people playing music and singing. And they were actually playing a lot of American songs. I heard "I'm Yours," "Call Me Maybe," and "Hallelujah." And that's what I fell asleep to. :)