And the adventure continues

Today Angelica and I had a free day to venture off into the town of Killarney. We looked in all of the many small shops along the main street and even went as far as to go off the path to get lost for a brief moment. It was a sunny day so we didn’t mind getting lost and we had time to kill. We knew our hotel was near a church but the church we were headed to wasn’t the one near our hotel; in fact it was in the complete opposite direction. During this predicament, we ran into a peculiar tree. As you see below there is a tree that is half on the curb and half in the street. We also ran into a Gaby’s seafood restaurant. After finally making it back I had time to work on my photos from the sheep demonstration. After that we had about another half hour to kill before our photographers’ group met to walk across the street to Killarney National Park. After we came back the photographers discussed the best way to submit our photos for the final project.

Declan Malone, editor of the Kerryman came and spoke to us in the snooker room about his newspaper. Kerryman is the biggest regional newspaper in the country. There are three editions. It first published in 1904 and was originally started as a family newspaper. It was originally a republican and now it is not supporting a particular party. He said, “We are pro whatever is good for Kerry.”Concerning photographers at the newspaper, there are none unfortunately. Like the U.S they hire a lot of freelancers. They do this because it is cost efficient. They have five news reporters. His advice to us is to never to be shy about never knowing anything. The sports section is very important. It is as big as the news sections in Kerry because sports are very popular. They cover sports from locally to nationally. They added a digital edition about two months ago.

After his lecture, Erin, Angelica and I went to dinner at Salvador’s restaurant. I ate lasagna, side salad and French fries. And for dessert we walked to Murphy’s, a locally owned ice cream shop. The employees played a trick on us. When we sat down a menu dropped from the ceiling. It surprised Angelica. And to end the night in Killarney, a fellow Irish man named John started to randomly talk to Angelica, Dave, Joe and I in the snooker room. His friendliness displays what Ireland’s atmosphere which is warm and welcoming. It is what I have experienced these past two weeks. His sincere curiosity as to who we are, where we came from and what we are doing here in Ireland was genuine. I really hope that his visit to New York in July is an enjoyable one.