Back in the US

Made my flight out of London despite some stressful train delays and got through customs in NYC after a lovely flight back. Watched "27 Dresses" and it was pretty cute. The leading man is adorable. Pretty crappy movie options other than that. Just waiting for my flight to DC now. Still not remotely excited to be going home. I can't believe I have to go to work tomorrow. Ugh.

Last day in London :(

I got out of Dublin without incident (although I do not recommend driving around that city without a co-pilot if you're not familiar with it!). The ferry ride was a little choppy, but good. I got stuck talking to people on the first leg of my 3 leg train ride back to London, but I ducked the guys before leg #2 so I could read, doze, and engage in train-by photography. Nice guys, but I suspected we had already reached the conversational peak and it would only go downhill as they restocked their beer supply from the trolley. So I went off to enjoy some more alone time. Went in to London with Mo today to get lunch, finish up some souvenir shopping and say goodbye to the fair city. I have had such a great time and there's still so much I want to see - the thought of leaving tomorrow is not a happy one. I'm looking forward to seeing the DC folks and my family (in 2 weeks), but otherwise I am very, very sad that this trip is ending. Despite growing up somewhat lacking in magnificent wealth, I think I could be very good at living a life of leisure - I have an innate talent for it! I have more pics from yesterday and today, but I probably won't get them up on the website till I get back to DC. Hopefully the good folks at the BOP have taken care of all "Mary issues" while I've been away so I can devote most of this week to catching up with folks and working on my digital photo collection. :) So there will be a couple more updates and then the end of the Carney vacation blogspot. Tragic. I'm going to miss sending random thoughts off into cyberspace - not knowing whether they will be seen or just drift along the information superhighway (i.e., series of tubes) for eternity. Hmmmm, maybe I'll turn my little blogspot into a newsletter of work, friend and family gossip...

Cliffs of Mohr and Dingle

Last night in Ireland

:( I wish I didn't have to leave, although I'm glad I'm headed back to London tomorrow instead of home. Vacation isn't quite over yet. Another beautiful day in southwest Ireland. I circled the Beara Peninsula this morning and then drove back to Dublin. Beara was lovely, but I think Dingle and Kerry were better so I probably could have skipped it and tried to hit the Wicklow Mountains. Live and learn. Plus, the roads were ridiculously treacherous - I thought the roads were bad yesterday; today was harrowing. About halfway around the peninsula I was wishing I was no longer on it and despairing that I might never get back to a passable road...at least not while alive. But all's well that ends well. I'll put today's pictures up and probably yesterday's too, before I go to bed. I haven't looked at yesterday's yet, but I think they're even better than today's (which I like quite a bit). Sadly, some of the most beautiful places were at such dangerous spots on the road that it wasn't safe to stop or even pick up the camera to attempt a drive-by. The drive-by pics I did take were in areas too dangerous to stop, but isolated enough to permit one-handed driving. But, let's be honest - although a few of the drive-bys may be somewhat interesting in a modern art sense, they fail miserably in the sense of accurately capturing the beauty of the scenes. You may have noticed a new addition to my drive-by portfolio - I've added a type of mise en scene shot to my repertoire so you (and I, when I reminisce) can see exactly what I was seeing while driving. Not sure how the shot of my Diet Coke got taken, but it's a wonderful memory so I kept it. I also added some pics of my car - in response to the requests for more personal photos. Sure, my car isn't a person but it's been a wonderful traveling companion and it doesn't hate to have its picture taken (at least it didn't say anything about it). Someone will have to come along on my next trip and drive sometimes so I can hang out the window for some of the harder to get pics.

Sorry, limited internet access...

so another short update. I was in Limerick last night and am in Kenmare tonight. Not progressing as quickly as I thought so I don't think I'll have time to see much of Dublin other than what I saw Monday night & Tuesday morning. There wasn't really anything that I was too excited about there anyway. I am in love with the southwest coast of Ireland. No way I'm rushing through this to get to Dublin. I would really like to go through the Wicklow mountains on my way back, but I might not have time for that either. I have tons of pics I will upload when I have better internet access. It is so unbelievably beautiful here - as beautiful or possibly even better than I always imagined it would be based on pictures and movies I've seen. Oh, I had my first real Ireland pub experience last night - spontaneous singing! Not me, the old Irishmen. More details later. I hope you're all doing well!