The land was green and lovely

I am pretty sure that is the start of an Irish song, but if it isn't, it certainly should be.  Wow! 
Well, clearly I am back from my trip to Ireland and it was amazing.  It was fun and gorgeous and inspirational and I drove on the wrong side of the road.  Really, what more can one ask for in a vacation?  (If I were nitpicking, I suppose one could ask for Diet Coke to taste the same as it does at home, but other than that- GRAND.)  My thoughts are still more than can be lucidly written about, so please pardon my stream of consciousness ramblings.  Life is so unhurried there that it took me a whole day to stop feeling like someone was playing a trick on us.  My sister, Caitlin, is the fastest walker on earth and she looked insane compared to the meandering locals.  Caitlin and her betrothed are wonderful travel companions and we were so lucky to be with them (right up until they got the super flu, but even then they didn't give it to us- so cheers!).
There are so many cows.  And they are all laying down!  We were amazed by this.  Cows in the U.S. (I started calling it America three days in because that is what you do there) stand up, at least the ones I have seen.  I guess our cows have more pressing matters to attend to.  Or they are all anxious.  We even saw horses laying down.  I thought they were dead.  They weren't; they were having a rest.  Dogs just walk across main roads by themselves.  I know I am going on and on about animals, which is weird, but really there were a lot of animals.  The proprietor of our first B&B (in Galway) is an Elvis impersonator and he comes to the U.S. regularly to perform at weddings in the southern states.  We were all baffled by this for several reasons, the main one being that there is no shortage of American Elvis impersonators, but a close second was the fact that having a thick brogue means you don't sound much like Elvis.  My favorite day was the one we spent on the smallest of the three Aran Islands where we rode rented bicycles around all day. My favorite meal was a lunch we had at a pub we found in the middle of a rainstorm in the tiny south coastal town of Glandore.  My cousin got married near the end of our trip outside Dublin and both she and it were lovely beyond words.
While I did not have a lot of free time to write (or revise), I did a lot of reflecting and was able to reform some key parts of An Unexpected Kingdom in my head.  I am working on getting those revisions down on paper this week.  I will expand on that in another post.  For now, I need to continue the unending cycle of post-vacation laundry.