Greetings from the rain-soaked, chilly southwest of Ireland! I'm currently in Dingle (go ahead, look it up - you knoww you want to), which is in County Kerry, about an hour from Tralee and 90 minutes from Killarney. That puts me about three hours from Cork, where I started out yesterday.

My time in Europe is proving to be as adventurous, in some ways, as my African travels. OK, sure, there haven't been any bus fires or defiling of ancient burial grounds or nights spent in whorehouses, but I seem to be "blessed" with principally only encountering my fellow lunatics. It even started on the flight out from Ghana - a number of people on my Afriqiyah flight to Tripoli were in a rather dubious state of sobriety, and accordingly were as loud and obnoxious as you've always pictured drunks on a plane to be, or at least until the rather intimidating chief flight attendant came over and hushed them up, much to my delight. By the way, speaking of Libyan flight attendants, the two women taking care of my section of our plane were absolutely gorgeous. And the seats were comfy and roomy, and they have open seating, and heck, they even have GOOD in-flight meals. Afriqiyah gets my stamp of approval, no contest.

Changing planes in Tripoli, sadly, was not much more exciting than changing planes anywhere else at 6 in the morning. The guard did, however, scrutinize my passport like you would not believe - he seemed halfway convinced that because of the vast difference in appearance between my passport photo and my current look, my passport must be a fraud. He spent at least 5 minutes scanning it every which way, looking at it with a magnifying glass, etc. I tried explaining that the picture had been taken when I was still in high school and had to be clean-shaven with short hair, but he just smiled, laughed, and went right on studying my passport. I did, however, clear security without too much fuss, and got to London around lunchtime.

Oh, London. My other home. Arriving back in the West was, in some ways, not as shocking as I expected. People are still people, and despite having spent 4 months in the tropical heat, I was not blown away by the cool temps - I merely smiled and enjoyed them. However, plenty of other things jumped out at me - how quiet people are in London compared to Accra, the existence of crosswalks with signals, supermarkets stocked with a million different conveniences that I'd almost forgotten about. Oh, and the prices. Dear lord. I forgot what it felt like to pay more than a buck for a meal, and my first dinner in Europe was at a pricey Indian restaurant in Islington, the Parveen. It was worth my £17, though. I spent my two days in London mostly sorting out travel details - sending my suitcase home, booking a place to stay for my first night in Ireland, etc. As for the crazy people, the New Zealander in my hostel...oy. I don't think I encountered him when he was sober at any point during the two days I spent there. Not only was he drunk with a crazily thick accent, he was quite the randy fellow - he spent an hour trying to coax the girl in the bunk above him to sleep with him. I will not go into the details of the conversation here, but suffice it to say that I was not overly amused after the initial humour of the situation wore off after five minutes.

The rest of my time in London was spent walking and thinking and processing and...smiling. I love London, especially the parks. Holland Park is my favorite, principally because it's the major central London park least likely to be clogged with tourists. Nope, you just get to see Londoners taking a break from their busy days with their family and friends, relaxing in the peaceful, green-tinged evening light as it drifts down through the trees of the park. It's glorious, absolutely glorious.

On the 14th, I flew out from London to Knock in western Ireland. Knock is easily the smallest airport that I've ever been in; I literally was to the front entrance within 5 minutes of stepping off the plane, and most of the delay was because the immigration officer had to go chase down the Irish passport stamps since very few non-Irish nationals bother flying to Knock. I took the bus into Charlestown and stepped in the realm of the Irish stereotype. I walked into a restaurant that was basically the owner's house (they serve you in the dining room or TV room), and in the TV room was a group of priests having a post-Mass chat and G&T before sitting down to their Sunday roast. Meanwhile, it was First Communion Sunday in Charlestown, evidently, and so there were a number of kids still in their dresses, etc. On top of that, it was cool and rainy. Oh, Ireland, how I love thee...

I made it to Galway for the night and spent the night at a hostel. One of my roommates invited me out for a drink, so she and I went down to one of the pubs and had a pint of Guinness and chatted for a bit, and then I called it a night. The next day, I got moving, got a bus pass, and got myself to Cork by way of Limerick. Limerick is an absolutely delightful town; a very nice place to kill a few hours walking about; the main highlights are the medieval churches and the castle, all of which are right near the River Shannon. Cork is also lovely, but...Kevin had foolishly neglected to reserve a hostel room for the night, which ended up being OK - I found a B&B whose room rate was not much more than a hostel, so I had my own room, a comfy bed, and a spectacular full Irish breakfast in the morning.

From Cork, I went to Blarney Castle yesterday to go pucker up to the Blarney stone, so now all of you back home will perhaps find me to be even more full of it than I was before, which is saying something, no doubt. Blarney Castle is lovely, if touristy; it felt a bit unpleasant to be hit with the typical tourist tacky remarks after 4 months of blissful relief from them while traveling. Favorite line: "Honey, do you see that tree over there? Is that a bonsai tree? They have those in Ireland?"

From Blarney, it was on to County Kerry. I'm currently in Dingle, which is the archetypal quaint Irish harbor town. It's in gorgeously green, hilly surroundings, the people are nice, and I miraculously found a hostel in town with space. Not only that, but I ended up in the same room with the extremely cute girl from my bus to Dingle, and she and I ended up going out with the other people in our room (which included two Texans from Victoria, one of whom had a friend who went to TLU!) for Irish music and a few pints. The musicians were great, the Guinness was good, and it was a fun (if stereotypical) night in Ireland. Today, it's on from Dingle to Killarney and to Cork for another night, then on to Dublin tomorrow!