Dingle

Made it to Dingle yesterday. The 3 hour and 20 minute trip only took us 6 and a half hours. I now have a least favorite city in Ireland to counter my lengthy list of favorite cities: Limerick. And not because we got stabbed or robbed or anything of the sort that typically happens in Limerick. Rather, it just took us nearly 3 hours to get through the city due to traffic. I can honestly say it was the worst traffic I have ever driven through in my life.

But, all's well in the end. Dingle is fantastic, and we even got a few drops of sunlight yesterday afternoon, and the sky is threatening some more today, though we haven't seen it yet. Re-visited An Droichead Beag to see Eoin Duignan playing the pipes and low whistles last night.

And at a music shop just a bit ago, I got to try out a nice practice set of pipes. I figure if I can find a decent deal on a practice set that's better than mine, I might seriously think about upgrading. Unfortunately, this one was anything but a decent deal. I'm glad I waited to ask about price until after chatting it up with the shop owner and convincing him to let me try them out, though first. At least I got a sense of what difference a "real" practice set might make versus my Daye penny chanter. Not a huge one, but possibly enough to motivate me to up my practice regiment.

We're going to head out fairly shortly, take the scenic route back around the penninsula and back towards Cork, hopefully meeting up with Anne and Bernard and giving Justin and Nathan time to check out Blarney Castle, but at the rate we're moving... we'll see.

I'm also nervous about trying to fit in much on Saturday, due to the terror of how long it might take us to get back up through Limerick again. Being a Saturday (and not rush hour, therefore), I'm hoping it'd be much better, and therefore better than taking the more rural route up and crossing the Shannon River via the Tarbert ferry, but we'll see.