Ireland!

From April 29th to May 3rd, I was in Ireland with my mom and stepdad. We flew into Dublin and stayed there for the first two days, then went south to Cork to visit the Blarney Castle and traveled west from there to Tralee on the west coast. They traveled on from there, and I took the train back to Dublin. I had a final on the 4th, so I couldn't stay any longer. :(

Here is the plane we took from Glasgow to Dublin. I was terrified, to say the least. The guy I sat next to was very understanding, thankfully, and held my hand during the landing. Propeller plane + Ireland's "screw you, American" winds = a terrified Taylor. 

Once we touched down, bought bus tickets for the week and got to the hotel, we decided to go downtown and explore a little. I had a list of things I wanted to do in Ireland. It consisted of two things. See Trinity College's library and kiss the Blarney Stone. Very simple. And considering we ended up right next to the college when we got downtown, we accomplished one of those right away. We couldn't take pictures inside the library, but I took a picture of the outside of it. 

Everything was written in both english and gaelic, which was pretty neat. 

Here is the library inside, and here is the Book of Kells. Worth a look. Very very interesting bit of history. My mom and stepdad weren't too interested in seeing either thing, so I did that by myself while they got coffee and looked around the campus. 

After Trinity College we hopped on another bus and took it to the jail on the other side of town. On the way, we saw lots and lots of these:

And we passed the Guinness factory! 

Finally we made it to the jail. However, we showed up riiiight as it was closing. We were really disappointed, as we had to walk through a lot of rain to get there. But the guy at the desk took pity on us and ran through the jail to tack us on the end of the last tour for the day. We only missed the first few minutes, and he didn't even charge us! This is inside the east wing, which was the newer part (and that's a relative "newer". The jail closed in 1924).

This was the chapel. A really tragic story: a man who was to be executed for partaking in one of the Irish uprisings in the early 20th century wanted nothing more than to marry his girlfriend before he was shot. They were married here, in this chapel, hours before he died. That's all fact. The rumor is that after the newly weds spent a total of 10 minutes together with a guard watching them, the wife was led out. Apparently, she heard the shots that killed her husband as she left. *sniffle*

This is the very old west wing. A lot of people were held her during the potato famine from 1845 to 1852. Many were children being imprisoned for stealing food. It was really hard to imagine children being held in such horrible conditions. 

This was the courtyard outside of the west wing. The cross marks the spot where 14 men were executed for their roles in the Irish uprising. 

Alright, enough sadness! After trekking around all day in the horrid rain and wind, we had dinner at the Ivy House, which was right across the street from our hotel. And yes, it was as good as it looks. 

The next day we walked around downtown Dublin some more. This was inside a church at the Castle of Dublin, which I'm not entirely sure was an actual castle... 

The outside of the church.

This is Christ Church, which is a very very old church in Dublin. It's essentially been untouched except for restoration work since the 1800's. 

The inside.

It was a church-y kind of day. After Christ Church we went to St. Patrick's Cathedral, which was actually very very close by. Similar styling, no?

The inside. The ceiling was really neat. 

These are costumes from the TV show "The Tudors". I can't actually remember which church they were in... it all kind of blended together by the end of the day. Very pretty costumes though.

Downtown Dublin. I was surprised at how cosmopolitan it was. Bustling city.

Remember the Ivy House? This was on the other side. Basically a tiny little pub for locals that served only Guinness. Not really, but if you order anything but Guinness, they had to go to the other side to get it for you. My Bailey's coffee really threw them for a loop. 

That evening we went to the Arlington Hotel for a 3 course dinner, live Irish music and Irish dancing. And check out our table: 

(Yeah, that's a beer tap coming out of the table...)

My mom and I with our Cosmo's. Yummy. The show was wonderful and fun. 

The next day we rented a car and headed south to Blarney, which is right outside of Cork in the south. And here it is! Blarney Castle, in all it's glory. 

The nice men attending the Blarney Stone. They made sure you didn't fall to your death when you kissed the stone. I liked them. 

This is the view from the top of the castle. I have to say, I was pretty jealous of the people who lived there once. Although the weather was just awful. I got an ear infection this day because of all the drizzle. 

See that little square of light right under the top of the castle? Right above the row of windows? That's where the Blarney Stone is. No wonder it's considered brave to kiss it... You have to lay on your back and bend upside down to lay a sloppy one on it. And I did. 

PROOF:

We spent that night in Killarney, which was a pretty cute little town. We stayed at the Holiday Inn (hahahahaha), which had a steam room, sauna and hot tub. So we were all in heaven after the nasty weather all day. 

The next day we headed farther west. On the way, we stopped to hike up to the Torc Waterfall. It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day, which was almost scary after so much rain. It made me wonder what was brewing... 

Ireland is pretty...

And we made it to the waterfall! It was early in the morning, sunny and bright. Just lovely. 

After that, we carried on and kept driving. Our destination for the night was Tralee, which was on the west coast. But on the way, we decided to drive through part of the Ring of Kerry, which is a famous peninsula. And I guess now I know why it's so famous:

Helloooo gorgeous. And THE SHEEPIES! 

I turned into a squealing 12 year old when I saw the tiny little baby sheeps. Yes, I know they are called lambs. Just let me call them whatever I want. 

As we continued through the ring, we came across a little beach called Inch Beach. Very pretty. 

And then I found this guy lazing around in the sun. But he wouldn't let me touch him. :(

And a cow! It was the day of cute animals. 

Finally we reached Dingle (yes, that was actually it's name). A very cute little town on a bay. The marina was really pretty. In fact, the whole town was very pretty. Colorful, which I didn't expect. We stayed there for a pint, then headed on to Tralee. 

That's when we ran into some problems... the car we were renting was a diesel car. In between Dingle and Tralee, my stepdad filled it up with petrol. If anyone has ever done that, you know it's not good for the car, and causes it to ya know... not work. So we get to Tralee with no problems, stop at a pub for a little bit, get back in the car... and it doesn't start. So we shuffle back into the pub, call a mechanic and have him come out to look at it. He knows immediately what's wrong with it, but it can't be towed until the next morning. So we have to carry all the luggage to the hotel, which was thankfully pretty close. Thank goodness the train station was close by, too. We had a really good dinner that night at a place called Cassidy's and turned in early. The next morning I packed up and walked to the train station, where I took a four hour train ride back to Dublin. It was beautiful scenery, though, so it wasn't bad. Then I took another tiny propeller plane back to Glasgow (much easier landing this time... whew) and a bus back to my flat. And then that night, I saw Avengers Assemble, which I totally recommend, if you haven't seen it. Amazing!

So the Ireland trip was very pretty, full of cute animals and lots of potatoes. I guess it was very similar to Scotland in a lot of ways. The weather, the landscape... the people in Ireland swore a lot more. I did notice that. Whew, this was a beast of a post. I'm headed to Aberdeen tomorrow with Martin. It should be a really fun trip! Love from Glasgow.