Meeting strangers, leaving friends



Simply by traveling without reservations and by staying in Bed and Breakfasts in Ireland we met many very interesting people. To mention only a few, there was a young man walking on the quay in Dingle(town). He looked a little lonely and we gave him a greeting. He was in Dingle for a marathon and asked if we might take his picture with the harbor in the background so he might send it to his mother. Sure. The price for doing so was to hear his story. He told about where he went to university and what he was studying. The price for us was to tell our story and make sure that he understood that California, USA, was not all Disneyland and movie stars.

Then there was the retired police chief of Dingle who is recommended in Rick Steve’s guidebook. We did not know that until after we met him and took his a tour of the peninsula. He is the unofficial historian of the town. It was a beautiful, clear, sunny day and he admitted that there are few. He was so taken by the clear weather that it was fun to hear him. It was as if he had just discovered the place after living there is whole life.

In Galway we just wanted a place to stay and it turned out well. It was a great B & B and we are all alone except for a couple staying there from South Africa. Breakfast was a very long one as we learned about one another’s homelands.

Just one more now. We met a man in Castlegregory who, when we pulled into the parking area, was unloading his car. He came over and asked if we had a parking pass. Castlegregory is far from everything and the big lot had our car and his. My response was to grab a receipt from between the seats and declare that we had purchased an "All Ireland Parking Permit". This started a wonderfully good natured verbal evening and following morning. His long-suffering wife seemed to suffer more than mine, as mine got equally involved in it. It was like we had known them all of our lives. Funny. They were from Limerick on holiday at the beach. We likely will never see them again, but would love to have them to our place for dinner.