Day eleven

Slept in quite a bit today, due to the lateness of last night. Hot shower upon waking. Marie turned on her audiobook when I was in the shower, but fell asleep again afterward. (Her brother did the same thing yesterday, turning on the radio when he got up but then falling back asleep whilst listening to it.) I don't want to bother her so I'm just chillin' until she naturally wakes.

Brunch: packet of salami, peanut butter spread on rice cakes, one banana, tea. Talked to and enjoyed Marie's company from when she got up until half three, when I finally got going. Latest start so far, but it was only a 50ish km day today. Ride unremarkable on a main, busy road from Tralee to Listowel, where I stopped to eat some boiled veg and a plain baked potato with green tea. I prefer to buy food in grocery stores but you have to eat it outside and it was super overcast with a semi-permanent mist today and I didn't want to be out in it. When I can find a café with a window I can watch my bike from, I go there. Anyway I'm more likely to eat vegetables or salad if I go indoors so that's good I s'pose.

Discovered in Listowel that the screen on my camera has broken since last night. This is because I was too cheap to buy the waterproof, shock-proof version when I had the chance. Might still be under warranty but I think I want a better camera anyway. Hopefully it will still take pictures for me for the rest of the trip... Just without the visual aid of the screen.

Weather today is absolute shite. Worst day so far. Not only wet and dark, but cold, too. Daydreamed my way thru the mist on a boring busy road to Tarbert ferry. The beach there in Tarbert was absolutely desolate. Grimy sand crawling up out of the sea, cloaked in white fog. I was forty minutes early for the half eight ferry, so I sat in the pub near the dock and had a club orange. Fellas inside an interesting lot. Chatty and constantly slaggin' each other and everything else (and betting on horses). I couldn't tell if they liked me or not but they all shook my hand when I got up to go. Apparently when I went to the toilet they made a bet on whether I was lesbian or not, but I guess nobody won 'cause I'm asexual and all.

Ferry to Co. Clare cold and slippery-wet. Sat in a little room with my butt on a heater for twenty minutes. Road to Killrush at nine pm quiet and lonely. Beach desolate as well. Sky and sea grey as sorrow.

Soaking wet and somewhat miserable, I rolled into Killrush and booked into a hostel near the main square. The building and kitchen are very clean and nice, but you only get one shower token that when you use it gives you 8 minutes of hot water. Damn.

Sharing the room with a girl from Scotland. Otherwise the hostel seems very empty. Tomorrow I go up the West coast into hopefully Doolin.

Pax.

P.S. -- Aunt Becky, I was thinking about what it means to "smell Irish", and we've decided it means the sweet, unique smell of a turf fire, along with the smell of horse/sheep/cow shit. Also, I have no idea what "the Bags" means. I think he got it from a song or poem or something.