Day 13 of 21 "A Day of Rest"

 Today is our last full day at our Ballyneety Airbnb.  It's quiet and comfortable and within walking distance of everything we need. It's so quiet, we slept in until noon today. Definitely needed it after two full days of travel and sightseeing.  It's sunny today, so we'll have a pleasant walk to the Ballyneety Clubhouse to have our last dinner in County Limerick.

Now that we're past the halfway mark in our 3 weeks in Ireland, here are a few observations:

1)  Two weeks would not have been enough!  If we had planned a two-week vacation, we'd be headed back to Dublin tomorrow and flying home the following day.  We are really looking forward to the next 8 days. They are all planned now, and I'm not telling.

2)  The pace of travel has been good, and the times when we stopped to talk to travelers and locals has been valuable and interesting.

3) We learned that the Garda (police) do not carry guns. They have batons to fight with. And the Garda vehicles have only a small set of flashing lights installed on the roof. Not too intimidating I suspect.

4) The Ballyneety school children ride in what looks like a private contracted service. The high school students ride in first-class vans, and there are no flashing red lights to stop traffic.  It's a simple stop, they get on, and continue to the next stop. We haven't seen younger children going to school, so we're not sure if it's the same arrangement.

5) It's been very pleasant riding on public transportation. The trains and buses are filled with local commuters to travelers with very large suitcases, and everything in between. The drivers are extremely patient with newbies like us, friendly, and of course, very good drivers on the narrow streets. Oftentimes, it looks like there can't possibly be enough room to pass by cars on tight curves, bridges and city streets, but of course these drivers know exactly what they're doing.  It's why we didn't rent a car. 

6) With Ireland being similar in size to South Carolina, we compared population. South Carolina is 5.2 million, and Ireland is 5.1 million. I wasn't expecting it to be that close because we've seen so much green space. Lots and lots of green space.

7) Riding the bus has given us a grander view of the landscape and countryside because the buses can travel in the narrow hills. The train has given us a more intimate view of the landscape farms and small towns as we can see in people's back yards, and the wildlife is more active where there are less roads and less people. Yesterday, a hawk flew right along side the train.

8) There seems to be more sheep than cows, more cows than horses, more horses than donkeys, and definitely more donkeys than llamas. We've only seen 3 llamas.  The cat to dog ratio looks proportionate. Cats roam the neighborhoods, towns, castle grounds, and even the golf courses. We've seen lots of people walking their dogs, but we have yet to see a dog in a pub. Not sure why that isn't as common as I expected.

I didn't take any pictures today, so here's a photo and a story about a llama that protects sheep in County Clare.

https://www.irishcentral.com/culture/craic/llama-sheep-clare

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