Anyway, Kilkenny seems like a nice enough place. We stayed in a campsite south of town and the owner never showed up to collect, which was nice because Ireland has put me way over budget. It’s also supposed to have a good nightlife, but Tuesday night was pretty much dead, and we walked back to the campsite in the dark, sharing a bottle of Paddy and singing. Wednesday we got a late start, but I still wanted to see Kells’ Priory. Yuri decided we didn’t have time and went back into Kilkenny to write or some shit. Which turned out to be a good thing, because I (after a 5 km – walking – false start) got a ride with a farmer who had been born and lived his entire life in Kells. In an Irish brogue so thick I could barely understand, he insisted that I tell him everything I knew about American Indians, and confided that though he had always wanted to travel the world, the farthest he had made it was England. The Priory was nice, he said, but the real attraction was an abandoned monastery further up the road, where the Kind and Queen of Ireland were buried. And then we arrived in Kells, and he gave me one last piece of advice before I left. “If ye’re oot after dark,” he said, “beware the Banshee. She’s the curse o’ the O’s and Mc’s.”

“Nice” doesn’t begin to describe Kells’ Priory, which, even in ruins, is easily the largest castle I’ve ever seen. Sheep still graze in the courtyard, and with no other human being in sight, it’s easy to imagine Irish warriors rushing around to defend themselves from attack. Truly another one of those sights words cannot do justice. And now I faced a difficult decision: if I continued on to the monastery, I would have to hitch at least some of the 17 km back to Kilkenny in order to catch my train. What the hell.

There’s something moving about graveyards, especially when you’re alone in one, let alone when it’s in the middle of a crumbling 12th-century monastery. I could have stayed for hours, the only sounds the crunch of my own footsteps and the bleating of sheep. But as it was I hardly had time to take it all in before retracing my steps to Kells. Fortunately, I had only walked a short distance back towards Kilkenny before I was picked up, and by a wealthy woman on her own no less. She shared a few stories of her own fantastically far-ranging travels and was even nice enough to drop me at the campsite.

By the time I caught up with Yuri at the train station I had walked about 16 km anyway, though. We even had time to grab a pint in a beer garden before our train to Dublin. Then we took a bus to the airport, where Yuri set up his Thermarest for some chemically-induced sleep while I watched the bags all night. I have trouble sleeping in airports, planes, trains, and beds anyway, so by the time we flew into Frankfurt and got to Bern (56 hours after leaving Doolin), I was exhausted. Ronny met us at the train station, and we had dinner and walked around Bern for a while, so I went to bed at a reasonable hour and got a good night’s sleep. Now we’re on a train to Môtiers, absinthe capital of the world – or something like that.

Train-ing in

Kells' Priory

Ronny!

We managed to flag down another taxi and a group of about ten people (including the birthday girl) went to Sinead’s parents’ barn, where we smoked and drank until 6:00, when I walked the half hour back to the hostel, and three hours of sleep. On the whole, though, I think my fondest memories of Galway will be the conversations with the hostel owner, Jim, who, along with several of the other residents, came to Galway as a tourist and just stayed.

Sunday found us unsuccessfully trying to hitch to Doolin, our jumping-off point for the Cliffs of Moher. After three hours of walking, we broke down and caught the bus to Ennis, thence to Doolin. Finally this was the Ireland we wanted to see – rolling hills, stone fences, cows and sheep everywhere. And those golf courses, likely as not to incorporate a castle ruin somewhere along the way as a hazard. Must come back with money someday. Doolin itself is fantastic. There are three pubs, and every night every one has a more or less impromptu Irish music session. We pitched our tent near the coast, then hoofed it back into town and stepped into the closest pub. 30 seconds later, Guinness in hand, I was struck dumb by the high, clear voice of a gorgeous Irish woman. (That red hair! Those accents!) I have no idea what she was saying, but I’m sure I wasn’t the only one whose hair stood on end.

About 3:00, a front came through, making a determined effort to freeze us to death, but bringing with it the most beautiful, uncharacteristically Irish weather. We decided to break camp and hike the 6 km down the coast to the Cliffs of Moher. Wow. Words cannot do this stretch of coastline justice. I’m sure my pictures don’t either. By the time we got to the tourist center (on the honor system, bizarrely) it was anticlimactic. We had seen the real deal, out on our own in a farmer’s field, with cows rather than fences blocking the way. So I was feeling pretty good when we got to the visitor’s center and found out that the last bus had left at 1:30 PM. We resigned ourselves to another long walk back to Doolin, but lucked out with a ride barely 50 m down the road. The driver was on the phone, arguing with someone I assume was his wife, so it was a couple minutes before he informed us that he was drunk. Long story short, I spent the ride back to Doolin steering from the passenger seat, trying not to kill us all as a drunken Irishman whipped around corners on what in the States would be a one-lane road, and occasionally pulling over to take pulls from a bottle of fine port. Then it was a nap, another night in a Doolin pub, this one with younger and more energetic musicians, a meal consisting entirely of free food from previous hostelers, and waking up at 7:30 to make damn sure we caught the bus.

Kickin' it Celtic

Our Campsite

Music in Pub

Doolin

Just your run of the mill castle

Spectacliffs

Dublin is just too expensive, so we caught the last train to Galway and walked around in a torrential downpour looking for a hostel. That taken care of, I got something like 10 hours of sleep and woke up to a beautiful sunny day. “Do you think we should take rain jackets?” Yuri asked. “I don’t think so,” I said. Then it started hailing.

Yuri at Jameson's

The view from our hostel