Oh the Glory of Ireland! The shades of green are too many to count!
After a wonderful time in Sweden we headed off to Dublin. Had a little run in with the Ryanair baggage thing... I still think their weights are a bit heavy!!! But at least all of our (ok, mine) luggage is safe in London now.
We started off in Dublin. Busy, crazy, wild, loud Dublin. As much as it was fun it was a whirl-wind day and a half. When we first arrived it was like culture shock! There were so many people and so many pubs. The first day we were there we just walked around and saw the temple bar area and visited Trinity College. Trinity was nice, very big and spread out. Its one of those schools where they have nice grass but you cant walk on it. I always find that funny.
The next morning we woke to find the weather in a bit of fit, it was raining. But then 2 minutes later it was sunny. The rest of the day continued like that as well. As this was our last day in Dublin we went on one of those wonderful tourist buses around the city. I know they are tacky but they are the best and cheapest way to see the city. We hoped on right by our hotel and made our first stop of the day the Guinness Brewery at St. James Gate. The place is AMAZING! They dont only call Guinness "black gold" because it tastes good, but because the whole idea of it and the way Authur Guinness carried out the deal is golden. For 100 pounds he has the land for 9,000 years with an unlimited water supply, and the grounds are about 300 acres or something. Its amazing. The best part, of course, was the pint we got at the top of Brewery overlooking the city. We finished the day at Christ Church and St. Patricks... The most logical places to go after drinking beer all morning. Yes, we found it ironic as well.
Our flight from Dublin to Kerry was EMPTY. We had a Boeing 737 airplane with about 18 people on it. And 18 people would be pushing it. It was the smallest flight of people I have seen. Once in Kerry we got our rental car (a nice little Toyota) and headed out to Dingle. When we first attempted to go around the beautiful Dingle Peninsula it was pouring rain, horrible fog and not to mention driving on the other side of the road with Jayne screaming in the back seat. If you have ever been in the car with Jayne in Mexico (or even america) you know what a horrible experience it can be. But we made it, barley. The rest of the day we just relaxed, ate dinner, went to pubs to listen to music and then back to our pub to have a pint.
Luck for us the next day proved to be much better weather, so we drove Dingle again. It was soooo much better! The views were amazing. Everywhere was so breath taking. Only pictures can describe how amazing it was. In the afternoon Jayne and I shopped around the town - dont worry, we didn't to too much damage. Haha. We spent one last night in the pubs and then went to bed early so we could get an early start to Blarney the next day.
The drive to Blarney was a scenic three hour tour (minus the shipwreck and annoying skipper). The Castle was pretty, the grounds were well kept and the Blarney stone was HIGHLY overrated. But thats just my opinion. Ill leave the rest of how that day went up to your thoughts, but it was very uneventful.
Once we got to Cork we had a chance meeting with an old friend of mine from Valhalla, Christina, who had started school this semester at UC Cork. We went to dinner with her and then of course, to the pub for a pint. Followed by an early bed time for our 715 am flight to London!
Overall Ireland was a adventure. Beautiful country, nice people and good beer. Who could have asked for more?
See you all in the London Blog!
