Day 71

Today I met Dennis, the better of the country tour guides I've had. Instead of an incessant monotone voice and plethora of historical facts and dates, he simply made everyone laugh, even at the cheesy jokes. I gathered that Dennis was from the Dun Laoghaire area considering every other person or car we passed he waved, honked and asked how they were. Dennis is a family man from a large Catholic family and loves the country will all his heart. Unlike other bus guides, nothing sounded like he had said it hundreds of times and once more may kill him. He was enthusiastic with every sentence and was determined to make our rainy day in County Wicklow a lovely one. Ok, I have to stop at this point and explain that "rainy" would not be the word. The day had started off like any other in Ireland: rain. We planned accordingly with our trench coats, rain jackets and wellies but that was nothing compared to the utter torrential downpour we experienced. Driving through the mountains our bus rocked back and forth with the surges of the wind and I could feel the bus's pain as it struggled up the hills against elements. So as you can imagine, Mr. and Mrs. Typical Middle-Aged Americans found every reason to complain about anything, especially the weather. While I asked, "Don't you know where the hell you are?" Dennis put on a brilliant face and refused to let a bunch of embarrassing Americans ruin the trip (the samples of Jameson helped too). So any road we couldn't drive down, we walked through and he sacrificed his umbrellas so we could at least keep our shirts dry if nothing else. I actually talked to Dennis for a while about everyday stuff. He was interested in how I was doing, what I was studying and I attempted to make up for everyone else's terrible portrayal of American. I have total respect for the guy for not giving up and he made it a great day despite the lack of luck we had.