Sept 19th

Woke up today to the smell of sweat, booze and 11 other men who hadn’t showered for some time now. It brought me back to the good old days of Tommy Hall, SJU. Tommy was a little different because the smell of protein mix and trashy women also polluted the air around you. I forfeited my breakfast for a chance to win a hot shower. The other 11 guys grabbed a bite of cereal and I hopped in the shower.

I snuck in and hobbled over the piss sprayed floor that had been murdered by the guys the night before who drank a wee bit too much Guinness. The high pressured water gushed out of the shower head. I turned the knob to red hot and cringed with happiness as the piping hot water scalded my backside. The steam filled the room, fogged the mirror, and rose up my nose clearing out my sinus cavity and breathing new life into me. I washed off and cleaned up. Meanwhile the guys had gotten back from breakfast and almost broke the bathroom door down to brush their teeth. I high tailed it out of the hot boxed steam filled shower, jumped the piss puddle, grabbed my towel to dry off and saw the day.

We started our tour around the Ring O Kerry. We buckled our seat belts and zigzagged down the road through an almost rainforest looking environment. By the way, since when is a ring zigzagged? And don’t look at your map, because it shows a nice smooth loop around Kerry. I thought of how Jesse Ventura, the Body, questioned if the streets of Saint Paul were designed by drunken Irishmen. I’m going to let The Body know the maps of the streets for the Irishmen were definitely drawn by a drunken Irishman. It’s zigzagged and a tight fit for a bus to drive the roads, but I feel very safe with the great bus drivers so far. You feel like tossing your cookies after a while, but then you look outside at the moss covered green lush surroundings and stomach it.

This is me at a picturesque hillside pretending I'm the Lion King while the driver smokes a heater.

We drove to Muckross Estate and Mansion where Queen Elizabeth stayed for a three day visit that the family prepared for 6 years. At one time Arthur Guinness, the beer guy, owned the place as well. The mansion had 25 bedrooms, 22 indoor servants, and too many fireplaces to count.

This mansion puts Summit to shame... They look like doll houses compared to this mammoth mansion.

We tossed the disc in the front lawn for a while, took a group pic, and hit the bus to get back to our hostel.

I was feeling a wee bit homesick and definitely missing family and Jinette when I got to the hostel. So I grabbed some Euro, recruited a couple friends, and scoured the city for an internet café/calling center. I left a couple voicemails and shot Jinette and email. This made me feel much better.