Hey, We Could've Been in Italy

So our Ireland vacation is not going well at all. We almost missed the ferry and then ended up in a dumpy hotel with bad food our first night. Then we decided that the next day would be better. Oh, how wrong we were.

On the way to Kinsale, we were going to stop at the Waterford Crystal factory and the town of Aardmore (where Christianity first came to Ireland through St. Declan, not St. Patrick). The Waterford Factory was closed (locked and gated) in spite of a big sign that said "open daily". But still, we would get to spend Palm Sunday standing on the beach where Christianity came to Ireland. That seemed like a cool thing to do. So we continued on to Aardmore, a little beach town with only two restaurants--one of which was fully booked all afternoon. Luckily we landed a place at the other restaurant and had some good food. Then we went to the beach and let Maddie play on a playground where she fell and landed flat on her back. Before leaving, we drove up to an old ruined church and graveyard outside of the town. We went in for five minutes and I foolishly left my purse in the car. You guessed it. Someone smashed the window and stole my purse. The locals kept coming by to apologize and were shocked that something like this had happened in their sleepy little town. We called the police, cancelled all the cards and drove the hour to Kinsale (where we had reservations) with plastic taped to the window. One horribly noisy drive.

Today we've spent half the day trying to get the window fixed. And the lovely town of Kinsale is under construction. There is loud heavy equipment everywhere. The visitor's center is closed because one woman runs it and couldn't be there today and there was no one to take her place. Several of the historical places to visit don't open until next week.

We're hoping we can get the window fixed sometime tomorrow morning so we can get on to Dingle where we hope to turn things around. At least that hotel will have a pool, so it can't be all bad. And after all, we haven't had any earthquakes...yet.