Killaloe. Birthday Killalooty!

29th Birthday started off in Dingle, ended in Killaloe, home of Grandpa Kealy. This is what happened...

B&B breakfast is lovely.

Headed 2 and a half hours East to Clare/Tipperary.

Drove through Obama land. No joke. Apparently, one of his very distant relatives came from some po-dunk town in the middle of nowhere Ireland, and he decided to visit it, so they painted all of the houses, made an Obama coffee shop, put up American flags and Obama billboards, and welcomed the U.S. president. Crazy. Maybe one day, Woodlawn will become Jamie-Land.

Anyway, we arrived on the border of County Clare and County Tipperary. Ballina and Killaloe are kind of like twin towns, one is on one side of the river Shannon, the other, across the bridge. Gorgeous Catholic church from 10th-12th century (depending on where you read about it), which is pretty cool, because that means Grandpa Kealy probablyjavascript:void(0) went there. Had a lovely lunch at the bistro in Killaloe, then headed to the Ballina side to check into the Lakeland House B&B. It rained, it was sunny, it rained, it hailed, it was sunny, it hailed, it rained, it was sunny, it rained, sunny, rain, sunny, rain, sunny... the entire day. And I thought Boston weather was unpredictable!

We walked around for a bit, then drove through the country side along the river just to see if we could find a Kealy farm. No dice, but gorgeous ride with rolling hills set against the river. We did some P90X Yoga for an hour and a half and later, had a wonderful birthday dinner at Flanigans Steak House, and went to Goosers for a night cap. Brad had had Trudy, our B&B host, bake me a birthday cake to surprise me when we checked in, so I got to blow out a candle and have an absolutely delicious death by chocolate cake. Then, we watched some Irish guy on TV who went to America to wrestle alligators in Colorado. Is that what they think we do? Ha.

This morning, woke up at 7, did some Core Synergistics for an hour, and now we're about to indulge ourselves in our first Irish breakfast (wish us luck with black and white pudding... Eh, don't tell me what it is until after. At least it's not blood pudding, right? Ok. I ate it. I'm updating this entry, and oh rats. It is blood pudding. I only had a few bites. I had suspicions. The white pudding was good, though!) Then, we're headed back west toward Doolin, Cliffs of Moher, and Aran Islands where we'll be for 2 nights. Very exciting.

To Doolin! (Where I hope the food is better than its Spring Lake counterpart's.)