Sometimes Ireland just happens to you

It rained all day yesterday in Dingle. Sometimes hard, sometimes light, but always wet. Between the weather and our hangovers, Brian and I decided that it was not the best day for the bike riding adventure we had planned. In part we felt a little guilty for wanting to stay in and be cozy - there were things we should be out seeing, maybe. But we got over that and decided cozy would be ok.

After Mass in English and a little sitting around and staring at the bay through our hotel window, we wandered into town to look in some shops. We had seen a place that said "haberdashery" in the window and seemed to have all sorts of cool man things like pipes and ships in bottles and such, so we decided to check it out. We wandered in and realized that it was actually a pub, which was also a shoe store at one time. It was old and creaky and had rubber boots up on the shelves that might have been there for 50 years. Even though we weren't planning on having a pint, we couldn't exactly turn around and leave. So we stayed for a little while, talking to a bunch of New Zealand All Blacks fans celebrating the world cup rugby victory from that morning, to a Bolivian woman and her German boyfriend, and to an Irish guy who looked liked Christian Bale and talked like Dave Katz (you Como Park people should know what I mean). There were a few times we thought of leaving, but then we looked out at the rain and decided to wait. Then an American couple came in and asked, "is this where the band is starting at 5:30?" We knew nothing about it, but it was like 5:15 so we stuck around. Then the band started to play, more people came in, and one thing lead to another. There were locals, and tourists, a couple of families, and an old guy snoring in the corner. All of a sudden it was 9:00.

As Brian put it, sometimes Ireland just happens to you like that.  The day unfolds and it's better than you would have planned even if you could have.

Today we were feeling much more peppy and the rain stopped for about half the day, so we did rent the bikes. We got them at a place called Foxy John's, which is part hardware store, part pub, and part bikes for hire. It was a beautiful ride around the rugged coast line of Dingle peninsula. We intended to make a loop on Slea Head Drive, but had to turn around halfway around the route because the road was flooded and there was construction going on. Sometimes Ireland happens to you like that too.