81 lines
7.2 KiB
Markdown
81 lines
7.2 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: 'Day 7: Sligo (via Inisheer) to Killarny'
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date: 2013-06-14T14:48:19+02:00
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Tags: []
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Categories: []
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---
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## Rain, rain, go away!
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{{< image src="/img/map-day7.png" width="400px" float="right">}}
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There's something strange about Ireland. Yes, it rains, but this is a stereotype that I do not wish to enforce. Unfortunately, one does not
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always get what one wishes for.
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This morning we left our happy Best Western hotel in Sligo (which we now know is pronounced "Sly-Go", not "Slee-Go"). The same woman who
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checked us in now had the morning shift - Ania helped us a little bit also with the pronounciation of Achill (Ah-Kill) and did indeed make
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sure we understood the perils of the road ahead. More specifically, she explained that the fluffy white creatures called sheep would happily
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walk over the high way and you had to make absolutely certain that you would not hit them. I was just thinking about dinner, but hey, that's
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probably because I'm an insensitive chauvinist pig^Wsheep. Then also, she said to please please watch out for the sheer and steep cliffs. If
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a bus would come towards us, we would likely fall over the rim there, and drop ourselves miles-deep into the ocean. And all I was thinking
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is that bus best not touch my rims, or I would have my way with the bus driver.
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So off we went, to find some grub. That turned out to be remarkably hard in Sligo, but only if you are foreigners. I had looked up the
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address of the Three store because unfortunately, despite having a data plan called "All You Can Eat", yesterday I saw a quick succession of
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SMS texts from our good friend Three.IE saying "you have spent 6.16EUR in data fees", then "you have spent 11.54EUR in data fees", followed
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quite rapidly by a "15.72EUR" and then a "You have spent 20.00EUR, you have been disconnected." Please for to come again! Jackasses. So off
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to the city center [sic] we went, only to not find either a food unit dispenser company, nor a telephone internet repair man shop. So I did
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a non-Pim thing and went over to some guys working in construction and asked them, only to be told they have no idea in some form of Irish
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dialect that sounded more like he wanted to bash my skull in. See, that is exactly why I do not do that type of thing. Le sigh...
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So we asked another person about the Three shop ("The whatnow?" - The phone shop, please?) and quickly got directed to "a" phoneshop, of
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course not Three, but O2. I thought fuckit, I'd just go ahead and buy myself a new simcard then - and as in Doncaster, it turned out to be
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remarkably hard for the lady at the shop to log in to the O2 system, and we loitered for about 20 minutes while she attempted to register
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the sale. Finally that worked, and we were back in business again, internet wise.
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As we turned out of the shop and back onto the street, the huge mall caught our attention. Of course nobody found it necessary to tell these
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bloody foreigners about the big-ass mall, which had ample food unit dispensing companies (I got a smoked salmon sandwhich, Paul got a
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Panino). Oh wait, "panino" - we had a discussion about that. I called it a Panini, such as I would figure approximately 99.73% of the world.
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Yet Paul loves being the minority somehow, and insists that the singular is Panino, plural Panini. I later that day giggled like a girl when
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I said the word Maffioso when describing Mickey Blue Eyes. I would never have said "Hugh Grant plays a Maffiosi". Damnit, WEiRD, I hate it
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when you're right!
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Our tour takes us to the perilous cliffs of Achill. It was a terrible drive, and I was not comfortable at all. This could have been the
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gushing rain, non stop, endless and mindnumbing amounts of water falling from the skies. But really, it was the puddles. The roads there are
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maybe 4.5m wide (two 2.2m lanes), no shoulder, and often bushes and shrubs which are acutely close to the roadside. The road, moreover,
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probably had its last service in 1608 [which, coincidentally is the founding date of the Bushmills Distillery company!!], and so it had
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rather large potholes. Which were filled with water, and overflowing into significant puddles [there are countries in which these things
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would be called lakes, I figured]. So what happens if you drive an SUV with 295mm tires through a puddle with one side, while the other side
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is on pavement? Yes. It pulls to the left like a boss. But on the left there is much bush and shrub. And on the right is that lorry that's
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passing you at also a delta-v of way over 120kmh. Did I mention that the puddle is deep, and therefor sprays a few buckets of water over
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your windshield. Do note, all of these things happen in the same 500-1000 milliseconds and honestly, my brain was failing to comprehend it
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all. I've had more enjoyable drives :-)
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When we got to the end of Achill, where the road stops, there is a rather beautiful beach, which was not necessarily beautiful today,
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because it was raining cats and dogs, and windy to the point that we could hear the wind howling over the car stereo. We hazarded to get out
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and we tried to approach the sandy beach, but honestly, the wind and sand and mud and rain and and and. So we went back to the car, and
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instead drove up to the dam. Many sheep again, we took some pictures, otherwise just retreated back inland where the wind was not so
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ferocious and the water not quite as wet.
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We had some lunch at a roadside place called [Ostan Oiliann](www.achillislandhotel.com). Somewhat excessive again, I had a vegetable soup and
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Paul and I both had a steak sandwich [which were actually two steaks on a garlic baguette with mushrooms and onions, and fries, and
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coleslaw, and a salad]. I felt stuffed like a turkey, so I snoozed a bit while Paul drove onwards to Galway. We had booked a cozy B&B again,
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Summerville, and it's just outside of the city, overlooking the Galway bay. Really nice house this time, friendly folks who let us in and
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showed us the room. We hung out a little bit and then headed into town for some dinner. We chose a place in the middle of town called the
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Malt House. It was very good, and I skipped the wine (and most of dinner) because I'm feeling increasingly guilty about eating so much food.
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I took two starters (a rocket [nee, arugula!] soup, and smoked salmon), while Paul took boneless pork ribs, then a ribeye steak, and then
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local cheese platter. I felt significantly less full now, which was good. It left room for two pints of Guiness, of which Paul made an
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#Autoawesome (see my Google+ post for that gem).
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After that we walked around a little bit, but the rain is just no fun, so we went to find our car and drove back to Summerville. When we got
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there, it promptly stopped raining. I think this is the cosmos trying to tell me something, but I haven't yet figured out what. As I write
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this, I've booked us a cozy unpronounceable B&B for tomorrow around Killarney (it's called "Lios Na Manach Farmhouse" for the terminally
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curious), and also a boat trip from Doolin to the Aran islands and the Cliffs of Moher. We have to be at the docks there at 10:30am, which
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gives us some 2.5hrs to have breakfast and drive the 80km via the windy coastal roads to there. Google says we can do that in 1h17m, which
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leaves plenty of time for breakfast. Oh my, oh my oh deary lordy my, I'm actually doing the B (laying on the B as I type this) as well as
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the B (I hope they have a good coffee) today.
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**Posted by Pim van Pelt at 3:10 PM**
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