Cycling in Skibbereen

Ellie, Laura, and I took a 2 hour bus ride to the very SW corner of the island to a town called Skibbereen. It's a cute little town. We rented cycles for the afternoon and picked a route to pedal. The ride was actually REALLY difficult in some parts, and it certainly wore me out. We were lucky and missed the evening rain.

Ellie & Laura


Green hills with some fall color! I am really missing the beautiful fall colors and fall sunshine.


Which way exactly is Route 2?


Logh Hyne - This lake is a seawater lough that is consistently 3-4 degrees warmer than the ocean that flows in and out of it, and there are many different critters that live in the lough and are found nowhere else in NW Europe. The nearest neighbors to most of the creatures is the Mediterranean Sea.


Look Ma! No hands!


The Atlantic Ocean - Looking SW from the southwest corner of Ireland. It's a bit difficult to differentiate between clouds and ocean, but if you look really hard, you can see!





This is sort of how I picture "typical" Ireland - cows, greenery, and rolling hills.

New oven and tasty brews.

We FINALLY got our oven - or "cooker" as they call it here. It only took an entire month to get! I was REALLY excited for our first hot food in a month.




We've also been enjoying some tasty beers from a little store up the road. They carry a lot of unusual and uncommon brews, and that store also has Blue Moon - one of my favorite brews in the States!

AWESOME. It is one of the tastiest beers I've ever had.


This one smelled a lot like banana, but it didn't taste much like banana. It wasn't too bad. I wouldn't go out of my way to buy it again though.

One theory for dinosaur extinction:

Deutschland!

Park Sanssouci in Potsdam



Schloss Sanssouci (Sanssouci Palace)




Sunset in the Park


Chinese Haus in Park Sanssouci


The moon in the park


Budweiser


BERLIN!

Me, Laura, & Eric in Berlin


Carly, Neasa, and Me - No open container laws in Germany :)


Traditional German Biergarten - Brats and all


Statues in Berlin




Holocaust Memorial


Ost/West Berlin - This brick line goes all throughout the city to mark where the Berlin Wall used to stand.


Berlin Wall Memorial

Dublin

Another long one folks!

Christ Church in Dublin


Famine Memorial - Very eerie.


The Custom House


Huge hook for ships docking in the harbor.


Do you think it's hard for tourists to adjust to the cars coming from the 'wrong' direction?


The native Irish 2-humped camel.


Ellie on the bridge.


Trouble Brewing - a really tasty local Dublin brew that provided a nice break from the heftier Guinness Stout.


View of the river from one of many bridges in downtown Dublin.




On our way to the renowned Guinness Storehouse


Mmmm. . . . Guinness.


Views of Dublin from the Gravity Bar. We couldn't have asked for nicer weather, especially in Ireland!




Freshly tapped pints of Guinness in the Gravity Bar


And this one is aaaaaaaall mine. :) Best Guinness I've ever had.

Gulpd.

The milk here is REALLY fresh and there is no such thing as skim milk, and all the cafe drinks are sooooo good.

This is what we've been waiting for.

We've had a hell of a time getting our national ID cards and FINALLY, our last 2 girls got theirs yesterday, just in the nick of time. We're flying out to Germany on Monday! Without these cards, there is no guarantee that we will be permitted back into the country.