Ireland 1, Leah 0

Last weekend, I went with Derek and 9 of his friends (6 guys from school, 3irlfriends, 1 wife, 1 child) to Killarney in southwest Ireland, in County Kerry. Six of us took the train down together and were greeted to a downpour upon arrival to Killarney that left us soaked after the 15 second run to the station from the train, but thankfully, that was about it on the rain front for the weekend. It sprinkled a couple of times, but nothing major.

Since everyone had a 4 day weekend, they all decided to go somewhere together for it. We stayed in a fancy hotel and sucked down a few pints on Good Friday in the fancy hotel bar, which still had cheaper prices on pints than Dublin. Thankfully, we were in a hotel because alcohol is only sold in hotels and train stations on Good Friday. Something about it being illegal everywhere else on that day, but they don't want to turn away tourists from visiting Ireland. !!! We didn't go too hard on the booze, though, because we had big plans for Saturday: climbing Carrantuohill, which I learned is the biggest hill in Ireland. Ireland doesn't have any mountains, so it classifies as the highest point in the country, I think.

We got up and everyone slowly gathered themselves, lunches and gear together to climb up the hill. I was happy for the Thursday shopping trip I made with Derek's mom to get gloves, a hat, and a scarf because it was a mostly overcast day and in traditional Irish fashion, fairly chilly. We piled into cars and eight of us set off. About twenty minutes later, we'd arrived. We weren't the first to tackle the hill, though... I think there were probably already a good 30 cars there! In fact, after the other two cars in our caravan had parked, the owner of the parking area came over to us and said, "Can you hold off for about ten minutes? I've got to go move some sheep to make more parking room."

We cracked up and obliged before setting off up the hill. Sure looked like a mountain to me, but I guess it doesn't reach the altitude test for a mountain. Oh well. The path was pretty rocky and pretty soggy where it wasn't rocky, but it wasn't too hard going, except when we had a cross a river a few times. Two of the crossings were pretty straight forward, but the third was a bit more tricky if you wanted to get to the other side more or less dry. I started off walking with the two other girls and then joined Derek about halfway up. In the distance I saw what looked a bit like a big rock slide, and then I realized in horror that that was the way up!

Well, it looked worse than it was, but about halfway up, things started to turn a bit more frigid. There was a stream running down parts of the rocks and the wet mossy bits were starting to freeze. Well, about 20-30 minutes into the "Devil's Ladder," as they call it, I saw a few of the guys in our group coming down, despite the top of the rockslide not being all that close to the top of the hill. It had frozen across the top bit there, and it was too dangerous to cross without equipment. Doh! So, we all turned around and headed back down.

I wasn't horribly sad about that, although some of the guys were pretty bummed. The scenery was beautiful, it was good exercise, and where else would I be able to get a quote like the guy having to move his sheep? The walk down was fairly uneventful... nothing like the way up with Derek was nearly up to his thighs in mud that didn't look nearly as menacing as it actually was. (I felt bad, but I couldn't help but laugh at him while apologizing profusely for doing so...)

So, that's how it comes to be that Ireland defeats Leah 1:0.