ewwww I have a blog??? who knew?? i guess I did but have completely ignored it for ...um.... a long time....I suppose I have been busy....yes , traveling ...hanging out....taking photos.....vacuuming.....always vacuuming. I sometimes think i should just have an extension on my arm that is a vacuum since I spend a lot of my time vacuuming. Would make life so much easier. So the topic of vacuuming is very boring and because it is so boring and Ive already used up enough time mentioning and saying the word more than enough times I will talk about my recent trip to Ireland instead. In a nutshell, it was awesome! I loved it, thoroughly loved it! I don't think there was one bad experience the entire 5 weeks I was there! OH wait....I digress....there was one bad experience. The rental car I hired. Wasn't really the tin can on wheels I drove around in but the actual company itself.Im not sure what kind of beast it is that runs this company however Im pretty sure its an ugly one! For example.....If I brought the car back and it was abnormally dirty I would be charged a minimum fee of 100 euro. So I phoned to asked what constituted abnormally dirty. I was told "oh dirty carpets , like a lot of muck and sand in the carpets" Um....there were no floor mats so when I asked why there were no floor mats I was told people didn't like them.....seriously?? Because people preferred to get muck and sand on the carpets and pay a 100 euro minimum cleaning fee??? oh.....for fecksake.....
Then there was the full gas tank return policy, leave with full return with full and unless it is balancing completely on or slightly above full than it isn't full and you lose your entire gas deposit of $138 cnd. If that isn't enough for you to sigh... Jazus Murphy ...than maybe the hour and a half long wait to get the car upon pick is.
It was bad enough the wait but then the whole charade around my hacked credit card and it being the card I made the reservation with and it not being a valid card any longer meant I lost my wicked online discount I worked so long and hard to secure!!! That was a fair bit of an argument I wasn't going to back down from since he wanted to charge me a super inflated rate for walk up!
Meh...in the end we got it sorted and got on the road, the road to Worlds End ! Kinsale! In 80mph wind gusts and the worst storm in 30 years. One month of not driving at all, then thrust into the drivers seat during with a manual transition opposite of what my brain is geared for and Storm Frank!!! OMG....the worst part was the constant bitching from my co-driver...who really should have been jet lagged enough to just shut up and fall asleep.....wishful thinking.... poor arse....he had to endure what he considered the worst driving ever. Had nothing to do with said wind gusts or the fact I was driving a tiny tin can , or the slow drivers driving in the slow lane driving uber slow , like 60km per hour and the fast drivers driving in the fast lane driving 160km per hour....the fun part was hitting the massive sheets of water on the highway and hydroplaning, hearing the engine whirrrring out of control until I caught traction again.
All in all it was quite the drive , by the time we made it past Cork and thought we were on the home stretch we were to find a felled tree blocking our way just before Riverstick. This meant a round about back way through sideways rain and pitch black night on back roads mostly gravel roads over the Irish countryside. Our saving Grace was a wonderful Irish girl who offered to lead us to Riverstick the backway since we were completely lost and ended up in her driveway up to her property. Thankfully we made it through Riverstick as shortly after the river burst its banks and flooded the town out.
We made it! after all that we landed at Castlepark to find a kitty named Princess Leah and two very happy black labs , Peter and Harriet who had not only made a big mess of the house but had eaten a pound of butter and lord knows what else in the short absence of humans.
After all that, the shitty rental car company, the fallen trees, the hydroplaning tin can on wheels, the six divorces that occurred during the drive down, the pinched nerves in my neck and shoulders, the dark and gloomy night and screeching banshees, we were happy , happy to be in a warm safe place at Worlds End, happy to have the friendliest pub and the friendliest people right outside our door and happy to finally be able to sit down and say hello in Irish fashion, with a great big pint! :D Cheers Ireland!!!! you and your people have won my heart!!! (and most of my liver)
