Hello! This post comes to you from the village of Adare, just south of Limerick in western Ireland. But most of it was written in Kilkenny a couple days ago, where we stayed in a modern hotel with an excellent wireless connection. Unfortunately I didn't have time to finish it while we were there, and we are using a limited modem connection now, so this post is only half-illustrated. I'll try to fill it in more when we get home! But for now I wanted to briefly check in and let you know what we've been up to.
We have been having such a great time and have seen a lot already. First, a couple brief facts about Ireland, for those who haven't been. It is part of Europe, not the UK, and the currency here is Euros. However, they drive on the left as in the UK.
The official second language is Gaelic (also called Irish), which some people still do speak - as evidenced by the fact we came across a Gaelic-language radio station - and which appears above English on all road signs.
The Irish accent is delightful, as everyone knows, and what is especially nice is that it is much closer to the American accent than the English accent. In fact, when I lived in Edinburgh, I was asked by taxi drivers on two different occasions if I was Irish! I was astonished then, but now I can sort of understand how it's possible. Practically speaking, that means Americans and Irish people understand each other better and David and I have slightly better luck trying to imitate the accent (only in private, of course, and still badly!). And of course, as with all accents, it varies a great deal in strength and form in various regions and classes, and not everyone sounds like Lucky the Leprechaun.
But to begin at the beginning - our drive from Oxford to the ferry port took over five hours and we met with a few very bad traffic jams that made us nervous of making it, but we ended up being well over an hour early. The drive was actually one of the highlights of the trip, as it was through some seriously gorgeous scenery - especially in Wales.
