Survived First Day of Rental Car!!!

BOOOOOOOO. Just as a heads up, this format doesn't recognize my paragraphs so I apologize for the massive paragraph this has become. Any suggestions on how to get the paragraphs to show up in the final version??? Anyhow, on to the fun part..... I feel like such a grown up!!! I have now experienced (successfully!!!!) Driving on the left side of the road!!! Very proud. :-) Today's grand total : a very moderate 102 km to start. Today marks the first of 9 days that I have with a rental car to explore as much of the West Coast of Ireland as possible. I am officially between farms and have full days free for adventure! Very exciting! I felt SO anxious pulling away from the rental car place but by the end of the day, was feeling much more confident. The hardest habit for me to break is looking for the rear view mirror up to the right. I keep glancing where the mirror would be in an American car only to find the frame of the car and redirect to the left. Shifting with my left hand is odd but manageable and driving on the left is actually much easier than I expected. Most challenging is turning out of parking lots. Besides the adventures of driving there were also three awesome exploratory stops.. Trim Castle (parts of Braveheart were filmed here, and now I want to watch that movie again!) claims to be the largest castle in Ireland. Very cool. (I am looking forward to racking up a serious list of castles on this Irish castle quest). I toured the keep and learned that they used to smear human excrement on the walls and put a bowl of excrement out by the door for visitors to inspect as a mark of wealth. The darker the stool, the richer the diet. Talk about in your face! Next was Bective Abbey, which is gorgeous despite falling into ruins. Finally Hill of Tara. I walked around the undulating grounds for about an hour (really want to see it from the air -the postcards look so cool! You should look at an aerial view online) and was able to witness a fantastic sunset from the top of the hill. So magical and serene!! And such a perfect day! I haven't seen a sunset that nice in weeks, score on the timing of that one! Had a delicious sea bass for dinner and wrote some postcards (some of this may sound familiar to you). :) My plan was to catch some local craic (music, haha!) At a pub but as I was leaving dinner, a family signalled me over and invited me to join them and we ended up talking until 11 pm. They even bought me am Irish coffee, it was so nice! I was planning on just doing a quick catch up but now it's been almost am hour (typing takes waaaaaaaaaaaaay too long on the kindle fire) so now I'm off to get ready for tomorrow!! To the West Coast!!!