Ireland

Wow, it's been almost a month since I last posted. Oops. I've been busy. Lots of homework and stuff to finish for the semester. This post will be all about Ireland, and a little later you will get a post about every thing else, and after that, a different post about Scotland!! I've decided from here on out I'm only going to spend money on trips and musicals - it should be fantastic.

For Ireland we got a really good flight deal - 2p for round trip! But then they charge you to check-in at the airport (there is a free online check-in, but you have to be part of the EU) So my total round trip ticket cost 12 pounds - not bad at all! We stayed in the south/southwest area of Ireland, we didn't go to Dublin. I went with Amy and Brit, we are all from Wisconsin, so it was a 'Wisconsin takes on Ireland' trip.

We flew into Cork, and had an early morning flight, so when we landed we had the whole day pretty much ahead of us. We didn't stay in Cork the first day, we went right to Killarney and explored the small city. It is in County Kerry, and close to two western peninsulas. It was my favorite city, very small and cute, and felt quite Irish. We walked around, went into a church, and then walked through a national park to get to a castle. This castle was called Ross Castle, and it was very pretty. We took a tour of it, it was really small and only really had one tower. On our way back to our hostel we saw a bunch of deer in a field, they look different from our deer. There are mountains around this region as well. Later that night we went to a pub that had live Irish music, it was fantastic. I love Irish music.

There were two tours we could have gone on to see a peninsula (one for each peninsula), one was called the Ring of Kerry tour, and the other was for Dingle Peninsula. We had wanted to go on the Dingle one, because we heard that it was less touristy, more beautiful, plus, in one of the bays there is a resident dolphin. However, not enough people wanted to go on the Dingle tour (they only do it if there is a certain amount) so we went on the Ring of Kerry one. It was really pretty. Definitely a long time on a bus ( I don't even remember how long - 5 or 6 hours), but worth it. We saw lots of mountains and small towns and beautiful countryside. At one stop, there was a man there with three baby goats and a baby lamb which you could hold and take pictures with - SO cute! I love baby sheep. There are so many sheep there.

After the tour, we took the bus to Limerick, and then from Limerick to Lisdoonvarna. We had a hostel there and our only purpose for going was to see the Cliffs of Moher. We actually went to some smaller town first because that was the only place the bus went at the time of night we arrived, and we had to get a taxi to take us to the hostel. Also in our taxi were four elderly Irish women, they were going to Sheila's house and were quite friendly/giggly and seemed to know the taxi driver. We got a later start than we had wanted the next day, but booked it over to the cliffs. We actually didn't have much time on the cliffs because we had to catch a bus, but they were gorgeous. We then took the bus all the way to Cork. Looking back, it kinda feels like we wasted a day just on bus travel for only 20 minutes or so at the cliffs. But honestly, they were really cool and I'm glad I got to see them.

Upon arrival in Cork, we found our hostel right away (with a little bit of difficulty) and then set out to explore the city. I liked Cork, but there was nothing amazing about it and I liked Kilarney better for it's smallness. We found a pizza place to eat at for dinner which was decent. We met a French guy who we played cards with. The next day we went to nearby Blarney to see Blarney Castle (10 mins away from Cork). We walked all through the castle to get up to kiss the Blarney Stone. (http://www.blarneycastle.ie/) It is said that if you kiss the stone, you will get the gift of eloquence. Very famous people have kissed it, such as Winston Churchill. So yeah, I kissed a stone that Winston kissed. Be jealous. It was scary kissing the stone because you kind of have to flip upside down and some old Irish man holds on to you, while you hold on to these poles. you feel like you are going to tumble out of the castle, because it is quite high. After the stone kissing we were newly eloquent and walked around some gardens and stuff the castle had. We went into this cave where I bumped my head really hard. The garden area (called Rock Close) was really cool and had some neat rock formations, like a witches kitchen. There were also wishing steps, and if you closed your eyes and walked up and down the stairs (backwards one way), you will have your wish granted within a year. I'll let you all know if I got my wish next year. The rocks inspired us to take some jumping pictures with umbrellas and we had a lot of fun with it. We did some souvenir shopping before returning to Cork, and also ate at a place for lunch, I had mashed potatoes with beef.

Back in Cork, we walked around again and found this really neat church, but we could not go inside because there was a service. Later we found a diner and ate dinner at it, it was quite good, we weren't starving, so we just got some garlic cheese fries to share and milkshakes.

We had to wake up really early to catch our flight the next day. We had really good luck with all of our hostels, the people were always really nice and we had no problems. I loved going to Ireland. They have a really good bus system and the people, music, culture, and countryside is lovely.

It's also a strange feeling to have London feel so familiar and like home. Arriving back it's just a relief to know exactly what you're doing and how to get where you want to go.