Early Sunday morning I hailed a taxi instantly off Dame Street to the Dublin airport for my flight to Spain. The driver was an older Irish man and characteristically chatty like most of the others I’ve had. It took about 1/2 hours to get to the airport, which was was moderately busy. I booked my ticket with Ryanair, an “ultra low cost” Irish airline that allegedly carries more international...
Over the last couple of days I have been recovering from the road trip to County Kerry. One of the only negatives from the trip was that I developed some fairly nasty welts on my legs and arms from bug bites. Sand fleas from walks on the beaches are my primary suspects, although it could have also been some flying ants near one of the places we stopped for food. Being a ginger / redhead...
CJ and I check out of the B&B in the morning as we are heading back to Dublin today. The weather is much clearer today, so we do a quick drive to a viewpoint on Valentia Island where we can see the Skellig Islands in the distance. Along the way we pass by Telegraph Field, the terminus of the first successful transatlantic telegraph cable under the ocean that was completed in 1858 allowing...
For whatever reason, it doesn’t seem that this post from Sunday was sent out to email subscribers, so I’m reposting it… The road trip has begun! The destination: County Kerry. My friend CJ and I got a bit of a late start out of Dublin, but we couldn’t have asked for better conditions… blue skies with puffy summer clouds, relatively light traffic, and gorgeous scenery. My posts...
Today at 8:30am my friend CJ and I embark on a tour of the Skellig Islands, two small, steep, and rocky islands lying about 13 km (8 mi) offshore Co. Kerry Ireland, including Skellig Michael (also known as Great Skellig) and the smaller, inhabitable Little Skellig, They constitute the most westerly part of both Ireland and Europe (excluding Iceland). Skellig Michael is best known as the site of...
Today’s destination is Castlegregory on the north shore of the Dingle peninsula. My friend CJ has an old school friend who lives there with his wife and three sons. The scenery is beyond idyllic, of course it’s easy to say that on probably one of the best weather days of the year. Google Maps took us up and over a ridge in the center of the Dingle peninsula on a gravel road… adventure! The view...
The road trip has begun! The destination: County Kerry. My friend CJ and I got a bit of a late start out of Dublin, but we couldn’t have asked for better conditions… blue skies with puffy summer clouds, relatively light traffic, and gorgeous scenery. My posts for the next few days will be mostly photos. The Barack Obama Plaza, a motorway service area in County Tipperary beside the village of...
Today the temperature in Dublin reached into the low 80s F / high 20s C. It was truly hot. Few homes in Ireland have air conditioning, although most large shops and offices have some sort of climate system. Thankfully my apartment doesn’t get too hot. I have been keeping all the windows open and moving a fan from room-to-room to keep cool air blowing in my direction. This morning when I...
Dublin is reaching its peak summer weather, with highs in mid 70s F / mid 30s C tempered by a refreshing breeze. I have been decompressing over the last couple of days since my CMA exam on Wednesday. Yesterday I took the DART commuter rail down to Dalkey to pay a visit to my landlord who lives there. Once I knew I would be staying in Ireland through at least the end of 2021, I negotiated a 10%...
I survived the second CMA exam today. It was about as gruelling as the first one, and the 4 hours went by more quickly than you’d think. I finished all the multiple choice questions but had to guess on a few due to time constraints. The essay / short-answer questions were straightforward. The standard turnaround for results is 6 weeks after the end of the month of the exam, which would be...