Samwise the Anxious: A Traveler's Tale

Sunday was cold and rainy . We had been lucky up until this point to have amazing Irish weather. Our intentions were to drive to the port town of Dingle and take a boat tour to try and find Fungie, Ireland’s famous dolphin. With waking up to this less than ideal weather, we contemplated rearranging our plans but ended up making the trip to Dingle anyway. We are from Florida and have unpredictable rainy days all of the time. If we let rain ruin our plans, nothing would ever be done! Although, it turns out there is a big difference between Florida and Ireland that we forgot about - warm rain versus cold rain . Luckily, we were prepared with raincoats, gloves, and scarves.  We arrived to a cold and gray Dingle that was still bustling with families out and about on holiday. We arrived a little early so after we got our tickets for the boat tour, we got a bit of ice cream and people watched for a while. Well, if I’m being honest - we really dog watched most of the time. I was f...

I missed the sunrise, and we still had no set plan for the day. We went down for breakfast and then decided to head out and find the Ross Castle. It wasn’t far and we made it there by 9:30am or so, but it was extremely crowded! There were children running around and screaming and chasing ducks. We did a quick tour of the site and its surroundings, got some photos, and left about an hour later. Then, without much thought, we ended up on the Ring of Kerry, which is a staple of Ireland that I had heard of before, but never really looked into. It is a scenic drive, about 111 miles around the Iveragh peninsula in Southwest Ireland. Along the way, you pass through seven little villages, one of them including Killarney where we stayed. I didn’t know what to expect at first, everyone hears of the Ring of Kerry but I never really saw myself wanting to do it because I imagined it entailed a lot of driving. And as much as I love traveling, I typically hate long car rides. I'd rather...

To some people, living in Florida is the dream. I have struggled with myself often about being content ever since moving here when I was eleven. I always planned to get out, but things change. You meet people that make you want to stay. There’s still hope of moving away, it’s in our five-year plan to do so, but for now, I'm trying to learn to appreciate what I have here and other things about Florida, considering I've been here now for fifteen years. But it's times like these that make it really hard. I am so thankful that I am in central Florida, that my home was strong and sturdy enough to make it through without any damage or flooding. What a relief, because I honestly don't think I was prepared enough for if it had. I spent all week prior preparing. We spent more money than we had because “better to be safe than sorry”. But I guess, is anyone really ready for something like that? It's so hard to believe that it's worse further south and my heart hurts for...

I finally fell asleep around 7 pm but woke up around 1 am and couldn’t get back to sleep . I’ve noticed that whenever I travel, I often can’t sleep the first or second night because I wake up with anxiety about being so far from home. Ironic right? I wake up in this spectacular hotel in Ireland and feel spoiled and then guilty and like I don’t deserve it. I guess because I am a person who is normally frivolous and I rely heavily on routine, stuff like this throws me off balance and it freaks me out. I don’t worry about it as much anymore because I know it will pass; it’s just the jitters I guess.  I tried for hours to get back to sleep and finally fell asleep on the couch in our room around 4 am. I slept like a rock there until about 9:20 am when I heard our hotel door slam shut. David had just come back from a drive around town, he had been up since 6 am. I felt like hell and wanted a million more hours of sleep, but I managed to get up and get ready and we went down for a b...